What happens when you take a movie, add in generous servings of gore, humor, aliens, zombies, and the music of...Air Supply?? Why, you get Slither, the film by Troma alum James Gunn (who wrote the screenplays to the great Troma films Tromeo and Juliet and Terror Firmer, as well as 2004's Dawn of The Dead remake).

Slither is a goofy, gory homage to the horror films of the 1980s. It seems as of late Hollywood has been churning out PG-13 rated thrillers and the occasional humorless R-rated gore-fests (Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes), but goofy horror flicks are not the norm (thank goodness for Shaun of The Dead).

In Slither, the small town of Wheels unknowingly becomes the host to a strange alien...well, blob, delivered in a meteorite that crashes in the woods. Not much happens in Wheels. Police officers trying to catch speeding motorists instead spend their time tracking the speed of passing birds, since there are no speeding motorists. If you watch the film, you'll know how fast a whipporwill flies. Entertainment and education. Of course, while the police officers are tracking the speeding birds, they fail to notice the meteorite crashing behind them.

Meanwhile, town businessman Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) is having marital troubles with his young wife, Starla (Elizabeth Banks). Not even the music of Air Supply can get her into the mood for love, so Grant storms off to get drunk. He eventually ends up in the woods and discovers the alien blob, which opens up and ejects a slug-like creature that enters the body through the mouth. Before long, Grant begins to transform into a hideous creature with an appetite for meat. Lots of meat.

It isn't long before people in the town become hosts to the alien organisim. Cats and dogs go missing, a fact Starla discovers after going into a room her now-alien husband had padlocked shut. The police finally get involved in the search for Starla's husband, headed by police chief Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion).

There are plenty of laughs in Slither, many courtesy of the town's foul-mouthed mayor, Jack MacReady (hilariously played by Gregg Henry), as well as the exchanges between characters.

There are also some boring stretches in the film, as you wait for the next gory scene. The film delivers plenty, especially the scene where we get to see what happens when a human host gives, er, birth to hundreds (maybe thousands) of slimy slugs that quickly spread out through town, leaping down the throats of the hosts to turn them into lurching zombies. Yes, zombies.

During all of this, Grant Grant has transformed into a creature that looks quite a bit like Jabba the Hutt from the Star Wars movies. The alien creatures all share the same consciousness, so it quickly becomes apparent that the only way to stop the zombies is to destroy Jabba the Grant.

Slither is an entertaining, if occasionally slow film, but a great flick for a rowdy group to watch on a Friday night. The gore scenes deliver the goods and the whole film has a wacky sensibility. Recommended.