SLITHER

We saw this DVD box in China for A History of Violence where they accidentally wrote “This is a great movie for an hour” on the front. They wrote that because they don’t know English so good but the review applies perfectly to The Devil and Daniel Johsnton. It starts out as a great movie thanks to obsessive documenting by Johnston (kind of like Tarnation if Jonathan Caouette was worth caring about) but after Daniel gets fat so does the movie. We kept looking over at each other the whole last half hour rolling our hands like referees and going, “Okay guys, wrap it up.”
Don’t these filmmakers show their movies to anybody first? Dude, we loved watching a young Daniel Johnston lose his mind. We loved hearing about the story behind Hello How Are You and Yip Jump Music but do we really have to hear about a friend of his marrying some girl he dated once, and then see pictures of them on the beach, and then see a drawing of a picture of them on the beach, and then a tape recording of Daniel saying his pal has “A lucky soul?” Yawn.

Conversely we saw Slither this weekend in Harlem. It’s fun watching movies up there because people yell “RUN” when the hero’s in trouble and there’s kids running around everywhere and people on their cell phones. The funniest quote of the night was this lady behind us who was eating candy and, when one of her kids goes, “What’s that?” she goes, “Candy” and he goes, “I like candy” and she goes, “No you don’t. Close your hand.” Chortles followed.
Anyway, Slither is a really funny horror movie that seems to last about five minutes. The acting is amazing, the dialogue is totally believable and the special effects are so good they make you grossed out by your own body.
Oh yeah, one big difference between seeing Daniel Johnston in the East Village and horror in Harlem is when people leave. In the East Village everyone stays for the credits so you’re boxed in until they’re ready to go. How pretentious is that? We just sat there for an hour and fifty minutes and now you want to see who did the visual effects? Why, you know the guy? Bullshit you fucking liar. Eventually we just had to shove through the assholes to get out. When we left the ENTIRE THEATER was still sitting there reading the credits. In Harlem the second the (spoiler alert!) monster gets killed the whole theater  clears out. They don’t need to see everyone walk back to the police cars with blankets on them and the ambulance and the “Are you okay” shit. The bad guy’s dead. Let’s go.