The Big Picture

Slotherhouse is a refreshing and entertaining horror comedy that strikes a balance between being campy without overdoing it. The movie cleverly references other cult classics like Mean Girls, adding to its charm and humor. Slotherhouse is a fun and enjoyable film that is perfect for a bad movie night with friends, and it serves as a great entry point to the horror-comedy genre.

It’s more difficult than it may seem to make a successful horror comedy. For every ten Sharknados, there is one M3GAN. Fortunately, this year’s Slotherhouse is a genuinely refreshing take on the horror comedy that balances being campy without winking too much at the audience. The movie is played fairly straight and only occasionally slips into self-parody. As any fan of trash cinema knows, schlock is at its best when it isn’t plagued with irony, when it doesn’t know how bad it is. There are exceptions, of course, but intentional camp is much harder to pull off than unintentional camp (the best examples of which are early Troma films, like The Toxic Avenger, soon getting a Macon Blair-directed update, or the more recent classic Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead). Slotherhouse pulls off intentional camp with what can only be described as elegance. It doesn’t show its hand until the first half of the movie is over, and you realize that the filmmakers are in on the joke.

Slotherhouse Release Date August 30, 2023 Director Matthew Goodhue Cast Stefan Kapicic, Lisa Ambalavanar, Olivia Rouyre, Sydney Craven Rating PG-13 Runtime 93 minutes Genres Comedy, Horror, Thriller

What Is ‘Slotherhouse’ About?
Slotherhouse tells the tale of a poached sloth that is taken from his natural habitat to be the mascot for an uppity sorority full of hateable characters who you want to see get slothed to death. Unbeknownst to the girls of Sigma Lambda Theta, “Alpha” as they so affectionately name him, is as deadly as he is adorable. Aided by a wonderfully practical puppet that looks straight out of a Jim Henson production, the movie devolves into sloth-on-girl violence in glorious fashion with some truly creative kills that push the film’s PG-13 rating. Slotherhouse wisely takes its time to develop the superfluous little cliques plaguing Sigma Lambda Theta and the girl’s various motivations so that once the slaughter starts happening, it’s highly satisfying and entertaining. With the exception of one or two characters, most of the members are entirely unlikable and all you’ll want to do is watch Alpha wreak havoc upon them.

The movie tries to take a more serious tone towards the end and pretend like we’re supposed to be invested in the characters’ growth, but who are you trying to kid, Slotherhouse? You know why we’re here, and we know you know. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t waste too much time trying to get us to care about its one-dimensional characters and is much more interested in entertaining the hell out of its audience. There are some truly great kills and the movie just oozes fun. It feels like the kind of flick that started with the title and developed from there. One can just imagine the filmmakers saying “Okay, here me out, a killer sloth terrorizes a sorority!”

‘Slotherhouse’ Reinvents the Teen Slasher Movie

Slotherhouse thankfully never slips into Jason X territory (although that film somehow has its defenders). It’s never a stupid film, just a campy one. The movie contains a lot of references to other cult classics, especially Mean Girls. The movie takes the template of a typical teen movie and throws in a healthy dose of sloth violence for good measure, making Slotherhouse a refreshing and cheeky reinvention of the teen slasher movie. The characters are clearly exaggerated versions of the “plastics” from Mean Girls, and the overabundance of pink constantly reminds us that this movie is inspired by classic Y2K teen flicks. There is a particular moment involving a car which is an extremely clever reference to Regina George’s iconic bus accident and only enhances the absurdity of an already hilarious movie. It’s in moments like these that you’ll realize that Slotherhouse is far more clever than your average campy horror flick.

It isn’t obnoxious with its references or influences, instead using pop-cultural touchstones as nice little touches instead of constantly saying to its audience “DO YOU GET IT?!?” like so many other films in this vein tend to do. Slotherhouse is by no means a brilliant reinvention of the horror-comedy genre, but it does have a lot more creativity and clever writing than your average creature feature. It delicately lets the audience know that it is in on the joke without being overbearing, a feat few horror films achieve. It’s somewhere between The Cabin in the Woods and The Meg 2 in terms of subtle campiness. Slotherhouse could have easily rested on the laurels of its ridiculous premise. Instead, the movie gives its audience satisfying kills, witty callbacks to teen classics, and even a few hidden jokes that you won’t fully catch until after the credits roll.

‘Slotherhouse’ Is an Absolute Blast, and That’s All It Needs to Be
Image Via Gravitas Ventures

What Slotherhouse brings to the table is ultimately a ton of fun. It won’t satisfy your friends who only watch “elevated horror” (whatever the f*ck that means), but it’s definitely a cut above films like this year’s Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey or even bigger budget flicks like the horrendous The Exorcist: Believer (which somehow has less self-awareness than Slotherhouse). It is the perfect thing to throw on with friends. Take a shot every time someone tells the main character (whose name will inevitably escape your memory as soon as the movie ends) that they’ve changed, or every time a character delivers a line of dialogue in a hilariously unnatural way.

Slotherhouse is perfect fodder for your next bad (and or drunk) movie night and is surprisingly effective for being PG-13. It will inevitably be forgotten to history, relegated to the annals of history (aka Walmart’s $1 DVD bin, if those still exist in five to ten years). Don’t confuse Slotherhouse for the latest Asylum abomination, it’s much smarter and funnier than that. It’s also a great entry point for newcomers to the horror-comedy genre, especially since it is PG-13. Who knows, maybe Slotherhouse can be the gateway drug to many a teenager’s obsession with the twisted imaginations of Lloyd Kaufman or Sam Raimi. Probably not, but either way, it’s worth a watch.

Slotherhouse is available to stream on Hulu.

Watch on Hulu