Slotherhouse Movie Review

Are you a senior in college looking to stand out in your sorority? Why not adopt a murderous Xenarthra mammal as your mascot?

I’m talking about a sloth! One of the most dangerous animals of all time according to Netflix’s 72 Most Dangerous Animals, I believe it’s number two on the ranking, but I’m not sure how official that ranking is. However, if the zoologists employed by Netflix watched Slotherhouse, that ranking would be the number one all-time world-championing-of-the-world’s-deadliest-animals.

In a lethargic twist to the slasher genre that lets a B-movie killer monster “hang around” in a sorority slaughterhouse film, Slotherhouse is a tongue-in-cheek horror flick that delivers a slothy kill spree packed with surprises.

This homage to sorority slashers focuses on social media obsessed Emily Young (Lisa Ambalavanar, Titans), a senior who desperately wants to become the next president of Sigma Lambda Theta. So desperate, that she agrees to purchase a sloth from a creepy man selling exotic animals in the mall. Honestly, I don’t know what would be worse, buying a killer sloth from your mall or adopting one of those sugar gliders that need to be cradled on your chest 24 hours a day and scream throughout the night … I guess a killer sloth would be worse.

Totes obv, (that’s sorority girl talk for “obviously”), Emily doesn’t adopt just any ordinary sloth. This sloth isn’t as slow moving or dimwitted as it would lead you to believe. This sloth is sadistic, cunning, and can move fast when it chooses, which has been my conspiracy theory about sloths since I first saw one hanging from a tree. Something about a sloth’s whole demeanor pisses me off and makes me very leery of their true intentions.

Honestly, this sloth is very similar to Oliver Quick from Saltburn (only the sloth isn’t slurping up semen-infused bathtub water). In fact, I’d say that Slotherhouse is the Saltburn of killer sloth movies.

Emily and her sorority sisters name their sloth Alpha, and it becomes Sigma Lambda Theta’s mascot. Soon, Alpha the sloth develops an unhealthy attachment to Emily, helping her to rise through the ranks to achieve her dream of becoming sorority president by systematically taking out the majority of her sorority sisters, including her best friend Madison (played by Olivia Rouyre who some may remember from AHS Huluween 2021 and High School on Amazon Prime).

In essence, Slotherhouse is a great Valentine’s Day horror story. Just picture this sloth as a psychopathic stalker showing his love for Emily by slaughtering everyone that gets in the way of their connection or her dreams. Why am I writing about a Valentine’s Day horror sloth story in April? Well, I channeled my inner sloth. I taped my fingers together into three pudgy claws and pecked at each letter on my keyboard for every word in this article while I was hanging from my neighbor’s tree.

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The Mutation Movie Review

Here’s what Slotherhouse brings to the screen:

1. A killer sloth with advanced intelligence. It can use smartphones, post on Instagram, and use Waze to drive to a hospital to murder someone. Also, Alpha doesn’t just kill. He plots his murders. He roofied someone! Does he have pharmacological knowledge of human tranquilizers?
2. The climax of the movie sets up the perfect storm of slaughter using the sorority’s creepy voting ritual—a ceremony that doesn’t permit cell phones—allowing Alpha to lock his victims into the sorority house without the ability to call for help, so he’s free to satiate his slothy bloodlust.
3. Great horror villain tropes are employed with Alpha being evil incarnate and nearly impossible to kill.
4. Mass electrocution.
5. A sloth samurai sword fight!
6. He’s practically a Mogwai that can talk and emote like a person.
7. Unnecessary Star Wars quotes.
8. Good comedic performances, especially from stand-up comedian Tiff Swenson, who plays the somewhat delusional sorority house mom Ms. Mayflower.

The few criticisms I have are extremely biased because, totes obv, they’re, like, coming from like the perspective of an old, like, nerdy boy. For example, there’s a large focus on social media, which I hear the young people use quite often. In fact, the main character’s whole life revolves around their status on Instagram as if it’s the precursor to the Chinese social credit system.

My biggest gripe, and I think a lot of my fellow slime criminals will agree with me, is that if you are setting up an homage to ‘80s sorority slashers you need more nudity. There’s a shower scene that runs for approximately 48 minutes and there’s not one breast. However, Alpha the killer sloth does murder someone with a shower loofah, so it kind of balances it out … not really, though.

And since its tongue-in-cheek, it’s comical that shortly after 20-plus people are murdered in Sigma Lambda Theta by a killer sloth, the sorority is back up and running and accepting new pledges, but hey, that’s college. Am I right?

If you want to skip your poli sci class and sneak into a sorority to watch Slotherhouse, do so at your own risk. Not the risk of the movie scaring you, but the risk of being arrested for breaking and entering into a sorority house. I had to learn that the hard way.