There’s a history in genre cinema of taking a concept or formula that had been put up on the shelf after its time of ascendance, and then finding that magical tweak that reinvigorates the whole subgenre. It’s been ages since we’ve had a sorority house massacre movie that’s broken through to mainstream awareness (the Sorority Row remake was in 2009!), much less a PG-13 slasher that doesn’t feel compromised or mercenary. So into this cultural moment comes Slotherhouse, a sincere exploration of influencer culture, resource exploitation and the protean touch of social media on modern life — but also a tantalizing what-if that introduces something external into one of humanity’s closed systems. Perhaps it never occurred to you that Mean Girl is an avocation one need not be human to aspire to? As an audience, we’re fortunate that the filmmakers have cast their net wide, aiming for Clueless as well as The House on Sorority Row, for Booksmart as well as Carrie.
Alpha, the film’s titular sloth, is not a puppet in the world of the film. She’s a perceptive and insightful hunter who enjoys snacks, anti-anxiety meds and attention; she’s a mascot, but also the apotheosis of the sorority house she’s become part of. And these character traits can be programmed into systems of animation and rendered via computer, and it could be just fine — we’re two decades out, and the legacy of Gollum is that we as audiences will accept weird little digital guys if enough work gets put into it and the actors who interact with it on screen make us believe. But think about the legends of cinema. Brigitte Helm as the False Maria Mechanism in Metropolis. Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla. Ricou Browning as the Creature From the Black Lagoon. Bolaji Badejo as the xenomorph in Alien. These are actors laboring to make something unreal become real. With puppets, often there’s a team working to maintain the illusion of life — one person is not beholden to making this concept live in front of the camera. But Miss Piggy’s eyes are just decals, you know, and yet there’s not a soul alive who would question Miss Piggy’s agency as a character, despite being a Muppet. (She’d beat your ass if you did.) So Alpha, in Slotherhouse, is not a puppet. She lives in a way that serves as both a Brechtian means of distancing and as something that exists in the frame, something photographable.
Slotherhouse is, in a way, the inverse of The Boogens. That film is an atmospheric and creepy thriller that ratchets the tension up to an almost unbearable pitch, then reveals its monsters to be far too cute to maintain the tone. Alpha is precious from the get-go; so cute it’s disarming, and as an audience the tyranny of the cute insists that such an adorable creature couldn’t possibly be responsible for all the death and destruction unleashed herein. And do not be fooled — this sloth has a body count that outpaces Chucky’s, M3gan’s, Michael’s and Freddy’s first efforts by a lot.
It’s entirely possible that the very idea of a sloth on a murder rampage might not appeal to you, and while that’s a lamentable situation, aesthetics aren’t universal. But if you have the capacity to enjoy murder played for larfs (while also taking a couple rounds on the emotional hamster wheel of realizing that we can’t really impose human standards of morality upon our xenarthran cousins), or if you left The Meg 2 wishing the giant octopus could have had more screen time to make a buffet of the cast, then y’all, this is the movie for you. Sure to be a classic of gateway horror and a beloved sleepover perennial, Slotherhouse is a breath of fresh air and a joyful murderscape for everyone who wants to slow their roll and mellow out with some mayhem.
