The financial and critical success of Cocaine Bear set off a craving craze of animals gone wild films. Crackcoon, from Fuzzy Monkey Films, is currently in production, and Cocaine Shark had the Horror Nation in stitches. Just when you thought this sub-genre might be fading out, here comes a wide theatrical release starring a murderous Sloth. Can director Matthew Goodhue turn this interesting premise into another animal smash hit, or will this beast gone bonkers production just be a desperate attempt to cash in on a trending theme?
Emily (Lisa Ambalavandar) has a chance encounter with a wild animal poacher before returning to college for her senior year. Upon move in day at her sorority, Emily’s bestie Madison (Olivia Rourye) encourages her sorority sister to run for president of the house. Standing in her way is the two-time returning president, Brianna (Sydney Craven.) Thinking outside the box, Emily decides to take up the poacher’s offer and adopt a sloth. The adorable sloth, aptly named Alpha, is a sorority sensation. Emily capitalizes on Alpha’s popularity. Quickly trending into online stardom, Emily is blind to the fact that some of her sorority sisters have gone missing. As the countdown to election day grows closer, Alpha’s reign of terror grows larger. Can Madison talk sense into her friend before Alpha brings down the house?
The PG-13 rating for a sorority-based horror film is a microcosm for this disappointing effort. Can anyone in the Horror Nation ponder what Slumber Party Massacre would have looked like with a PG-13 release? Shockingly, Slotherhouse has some tremendously fantastic attributes. Goodhue shows lots of promise in the genre by setting up some fantastic atmospheric kill scenes, only to be handcuffed by the non-R rating. The director perfectly uses B-roll sound, giving the audience a couple of great jump scares that rival James Wan.
Every performance in the film is poorly over the top. The fault does not lay with the performers, but the pathetic script from Bradley Fowler and Cady Lanigan. There is no expectation for an Oscar caliber screenplay here, but the plot is embarrassingly abysmal. Characters go missing for weeks without any reasonable investigation, a poor subplot involving the sloth’s medication is never remotely explained, and the star sloth is allegedly super tech savvy. A simpler, darker, script would have turned this choppy film into a cult classic.
Top marks to the creative team behind Alpha. The sloth shows more personality and emotional connection to the audience than any of her human castmates.
In the end, a fun premise, a very good director, and a superstar sloth, are ruined by a script that would receive an F at any freshman course film school.
Scream Score: 6/10