Director: James Gunn
Year Released: 2006
Rating: 2.0
Pastiche of innumerable horror films into one particularly trashy - but funny one - as an alien pod from space arrives in one of the Red States, infects bald tough guy Michael Rooker and his trailer-trash girlfriend ... and he becomes a grotesque nightmare after that. Knowing this came from so many different places (Basket Case, Cronenberg's Shivers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Living Dead and on and on) takes some of the fun away, but as far as cinematic mixtures of comedy and horror, it's far, far better than its box office numbers would indicate - come on, teens-with-disposable-cash, you want gross-out moments, so here are your gross-out moments. I went looking for deeper meaning and political subtext (as a good viewer would) but decided, in the end, it's apolitical (shit fell out of the sky, end of story) and would rather produce nausea than thought (fair deal for a former Troma-man like Gunn); Gregg Henry steals his scenes as a fast talkin', Mr. Pibb-jonesing Republican.
