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'Slotherhouse' Review: Killer Sloth Horror Is Every Bit As Ridiculous As It Sounds

Beyond monsters, horror movies have a rich tradition of killer animals. Supercharged versions of creatures from our own realm of existence. There's the giant croc in Lake Placid, the mutated giant ants of Them!, the winged foes of Hitchcock's The Birds. There's the bloodthirsty flock of Black Sheep, the titular fish in Eli Roth's Piranha, the undead dam builders in Zombeavers, and the bear that did cocaine in, um, Cocaine Bear. From Jaws to the giant smartsharks in Deep Blue Sea to the even more colossal megalodon shark in The Meg and its sequel, sharks have a whole subgenre of their own.

Nobody though, at least to my knowledge, has ever tried to make a creature feature movie about a killer sloth.

There's probably a reason for that.

Slotherhouse is a movie that makes its intentions clear right from the title. Similar to its creature feature predecessors, it's trying to lean into the self-aware, tongue-in-cheek tone that horror comedies often thrive on. The problem is, the film doesn't quite manage it. Slotherhouse aims for so bad it's good, but the film gets stuck on the bad part, the good never fully materialising.

What's Slotherhouse about?

Well, here goes.

Written by Bradley Fowler and Cady Lanigan, and directed by Matthew Goodhue, Slotherhouse sets the film's tone pretty well with its opening sequence. We see an impressively fake-looking sloth shuffling along a tree branch hanging over a lake, only to be suddenly munched from below by a lurking crocodile. Moments later, the same sloth is seen heroically dragging itself out of the water before being nabbed by some poachers. Back in the lake, the croc's body floats to the surface — then rolls belly up to show three large slashes across its mid-section.

This sloth, it seems, is not to be messed with.

The rest of the action takes place at a sorority house, as many a horror movie does. College senior Emily (Lisa Ambalavanar) is desperate to become house president, and after a chance meeting in a mall with the aforementioned sloth's kidnapper, she decides – as you do – that the only way to win votes is to buy the sloth and keep it as a novelty pet. Needless to say, the sloth isn't exactly on board. After stalking its new owner on social media (yes, this really happens) and seeing a picture of Emily posing with the poacher (his handle is "OExotic"), the sloth decides that the only course of action is to go on a brutal and creative killing spree.

The film revolves around a sorority house president election. Credit: Gravitas Ventures

Slotherhouse is jam-packed with truly ridiculous moments

You'd probably be disappointed not to find some wild sequences in a film titled Slotherhouse, and credit where credit's due: the screenwriters came up with more than a few inventive set pieces. As well as the sloth's casual Instagram stalking session (it clicks the mouse button with its claw, in case you were wondering), there are also scenes involving death by sleeping bag balcony trap and a particularly gruesome use of hair straighteners.

Sloths May Be Threatened By Climate Change, Human Sprawl After 64 Million Years Of Evolution

Sloths, the world's slowest mammals, have evolved over 64 million years into a species that thrives throughout Central America and northern South America, but climate change and human sprawl could be threatening the species' survival.

Scientist Becky Cliffe is conducting the world's first-ever population study of sloths so she can determine just how much trouble the animal might be in. Cliffe said her staff is suddenly seeing fewer sloths and some are suffering from an illness she suspects may be related to climate change; sloths are starving to death even though they have full stomachs.

"We're getting extreme periods of hot dry weather, and then extreme periods of prolonged cold and rain. And that is not what sloths have evolved to survive in," Cliffe said. "What we're discovering is that the microbes in the sloth's stomach that they use to digest the leaves they eat, when the sloth gets too cold, those microbes die. So even though the sloth might be eating and looking well, it's not digesting its food properly. So they're losing energy and they're getting very weak."

For Cliffe to collect data, she has to collect sloths. The mammal, a master of disguise, can be hard to spot, even though neither of the two species in the country are considered endangered.

"They've evolved over the last 64 million years to be masters of disguise, right? They are so good at pretending to be coconuts and bird nests," Cliffe said.

Sharyn Alfonsi and Becky Cliffe talk sloths

Zoologist Becky Cliffe, right, told Sharyn Alfonsi about the population study she's doing of sloths. 60 Minutes

They blend into tree canopy and can easily be mistaken for tufts of leaves. While that ability to conceal themselves may have helped the sloth survive for so long, it also makes it difficult for researchers and activists to help the mammal and gather the data they need.

Finding sloths is the full time job for one of Cliffe's colleagues. He climbs barefoot up stories-tall trees covered in biting ants to reach sloths, putting them in a bag and lowering them down. The team collects manual data, such as the type of trees the sloths live in. The sloths are also given a tiny backpack with a data logger that can record their micro body movements and behavior.

The sloths in Costa Rica have terrible eyesight and bad hearing, but it hasn't impeded their daily lives. Sloths have evolved in a unique way that turns the idea of survival of the fittest upside down. They're the slowest mammal in the world, topping out at a half mile an hour on the ground. They move so slowly that algae literally grows on them.

Being nature's couch potato is the reason sloths have survived for so long, zoologist Lucy Cooke said. She should know — she's written the book on sloths, or rather two of them. Cooke has observed and documented the strange lives of sloths for 15 years. What's hard for many to understand is that sloths are uniquely built to survive.

"They're saving energy. They're vegetarians, and leaves don't want to be eaten any more than antelope do, right? So they create a lot of toxins," Cooke said. "So the sloth can digest those toxins, but only very, very slowly. They don't want to process them fast. And so they're all about burning as little energy as possible."

They're solitary creatures and climb to the ground for a bathroom break just once a week. Descending from trees to go to the bathroom is a risk for sloths; the animal is vulnerable to predators while on the ground, Cliffe, the expert behind the sloth population study, wrote in a Sloth Conservation Foundation post. Scientists have struggled to explain why sloths will only go to the bathroom on the ground. Cliffe believes the sloths communicate via pheromones present in urine and feces. If the animals went to the bathroom from atop tree canopies, those messages could be lost.

Sloths spend most of their time in trees. 60 Minutes

Their trips to the ground aren't the only risk sloths face. Sloths' millions of years of unique evolution could not prepare the animal for human sprawl. Sloths spend about 90% of their life hanging upside down from vines and trees and sometimes suffer electrical burns after touching power lines while grabbing for vines in the forest.

At Toucan Rescue Ranch in Costa Rica, veterinarians treat sloths who've suffered electrical burns. The veterinarians believe sloths' slow metabolism plays a key role in recovery, allowing sloths to recover from injuries that might kill other creatures.

The Toucan Rescue Ranch also takes in orphaned sloths. It can take up to two years for the orphans to be released back into the wild.

Across the world, there are six different species of sloths. Costa Rica is home to two of those species – the Bradypus and what's known as the two-toed.

"The two-toed I always say looks like a cross between a Wookiee and a pig, because they've got that sort of beep-able nose. And then these ones [Bradypus] have the sort of, you know, Beatles haircuts and, and Mona Lisa smiles," Cooke said.

Learning more about the creature with the mysterious smile could yield some crucial insights for humans, too.

"We can learn how to be more slow and sustainable ourselves, because we need to. You know, we're destroying this planet at an alarming rate. And part of that is because of our addiction to speed and convenience," Cooke said.

"So if we took a few carefully, slowly, digested leaves out of the sloth's book, you know, we might, we might save this beautiful planet and all of the amazing creatures that live on it."

This story was reported by Sharyn Alfonsi, Guy Campanile and Lucy Hatcher.

Sloths, The World's Slowest Mammal, Turn Survival Of The Fittest Upside Down

The stopwatch has long been the symbol of 60 Minutes. But any measure of time is pointless for the subject of our next story: the slow-moving sloth. You might think these distant relatives of the armadillo would make the perfect meal for just about anything faster. And yet, somehow sloths have been hanging on in one form or another for 64 million years. To understand this quirky animal...We hung out with a quirky zoologist. Lucy Cooke has been documenting the strange lives of sloths for 15 years. Cooke was our guide on a trip to Costa Rica…where scientists are making new discoveries about a creature that's turned "survival of the fittest" upside down.

Lucy Cooke: This is an area where there are lots of sloths so we do have that on our side.

The first thing we learned about sloths is that it's hard to spot them in the wild. We were warned to keep our eyes on the ground for poisonous snakes…as Lucy Cooke scanned the treetops. The sloth is a master of disguise. It blends into the canopy and can easily be mistaken for a tuft of leaves.

Lucy Cooke: They tend to hunker down when it rains…so making it even harder to see them...

Our luck improved on the beach.

Lucy Cooke: Oh-oh! There's one up there. She--she's in the nook of the tree looking a bit like a termite hump. And she's hunched over, so what we're looking at is her back.

Sharyn Alfonsi and Lucy Cooke look for sloths in Costa Rica. 60 Minutes

That is not the side of the sloth we went all the way to Central America to see. So Lucy Cooke took us to an animal sanctuary to get a better view of the two species of sloth that live here: the bradypus...And the two toed…

Lucy Cooke: So the two-toed I always say looks like a cross between a Wookiee and a pig. (laughs) 'Cause they've got that sort of beep-able nose. And then these ones have the sort of, you know, Beatles haircuts and-- and Mona Lisa smiles.

Behind that ringer for Ringo, Cooke says, is a secret. Being nature's couch potato is the reason sloths have survived for more than 60 million years in spite, of, well, themselves.

Their eyesight is lousy - their hearing not much better.

In a tree they can move like a tai chi master…to avoid the eyes of hungry birds of prey.

But on the ground, Cooke says gravity removes any shred of dignity. Even with a hurricane strength tailwind, a sloth will top out at a half mile per hour.

Lucy Cooke: the first people that described the sloths, the conquistadors that first observed them, they said terrible things. One said it was the stupidest animal that he'd ever seen. And another said one more defect would-- make its life impossible. And (laughs) they just-- they just didn't understand them, you know?

Cooke says what those early explorers didn't understand…and what is frankly hard to believe when you watch the effort it takes for a sloth just to blink…is that this hairy ninja is uniquely built to survive.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Why so slow? Why do they move so slow?

Sloths spend most of their time in trees. 60 Minutes

Lucy Cooke: Because they're saving energy. They're vegetarians. And leaves don't want to be eaten any more than antelope do, right? So they create a lot of toxins. So the sloth can digest those toxins, but only very, very slowly. They don't want to process them fast. And so they're all about burning as little energy as possible.

Sloths spend about 90% of their lives hanging upside down and typically only climb to the ground for bathroom breaks…once a week. With habits like that and nails like this… you can understand why they are solitary creatures…and prefer to be alone…until they don't.

Lucy Cooke: What they do is the females will climb to the top of a tree when they're in heat and scream for sex.

Sharyn Alfonsi: OK. (laughs) So really low key.

Lucy Cooke: Really low key. But they scream in D sharp. Like, that's the-- the-- they make this-- and I'll do it. And I-- he may well on the strength of my impersonation. Let's see if Teddy, who's a boy, looks around--

Sharyn Alfonsi: Swipes right—

Lucy Cooke: --yeah, (laughs) exactly. Let's just see if he g-- OK, I'm gonna (screams) "Whee!" (laughs)

Lucy Cooke: I have actually seen Bradypuses having sex. It's the only thing they do quickly. I mean it was - I was shocked but then afterwards both male and female retreated and had the deepest snooze.

Behind Lucy Cooke's cheeky sense of humor is a hefty resume. She has a master's degree from Oxford and published four books...Including two on sloths. She's also hosted wildlife programs for the BBC and National Geographic. The photos Cooke takes on her expeditions have gone viral…leading to donations for conservation and crowds at lectures that mix biology with stand-up.

Lucy Cooke (during a Ted Talk): We humans are obsessed with speed. We idolize animals like the cheetah capable of doing naught to 60 in three seconds flat, well so what?

Sharyn Alfonsi: Are they cute, or are they so ugly they're cute?

Lucy Cooke: Oh no. They're cute surely. But then, I mean, I think a naked mole rat's cute, so you're asking the wrong person. (laughs)

A sloth in Costa Rica 60 Minutes

Sharyn Alfonsi: You like a B-list animal.

Lucy Cooke: Yeah bats, hyenas. I mean, is the-- there's a whole list of-- of animals that I think, you know, just have extraordinar-- arily strange and wonderful lives. And-- and just to me just add to the richness of-- of the universe.

Just look how one of those B-list animals can leave Lucy Cooke starstruck.

Lucy Cooke: You guys have got to see this!

As we were making our way through the Costa Rican rainforest, Cooke noticed this. What looks like fluffy golf balls, she realized… was a cluster of something we'd never heard of…the elusive…Caribbean white tent-making bats.

Lucy Cooke: Look they're-they're bats but they're white and they and they live in these leaves. My heart rate is going up…I'm gonna start pouring in sweat and I might start crying actually because its just so…I mean it's just a miracle of evolution. I mean it's just why? Like why?

That sense of wonder has made Lucy Cooke a compelling advocate for sloths. Like them, she looks at the world from a different point of view.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Your latest book is called?

Lucy Cooke: "Bitch." On the-- (laughs) I do apologize. I really like you and your work, but yeah, my book's called "Bitch." (laughs)

In it, Cooke challenges the narrative that in the animal kingdom, males are usually dominant and promiscuous while females are submissive and monogamous. She traveled the world to collaborate with scientists and studied dozens of animals. Reporting how killer whale pods are led by post menopausal orcas and how tyrannical matriarchs control meerkat society. Her re-examination flips parts of Charles Darwin's theories upside down.

Lucy Cooke: Charles Darwin's a hero of mine. I studied evolutionary biology. But he was a Victorian man. And so when he came to brand the female of the species, she came out in the shape of a Victorian housewife. Passive, coy, chaste. You know we were sort of-- a feminine footnote to the macho main event basically.

Sharyn Alfonsi: I can hear people saying, "Is this biological wokeness?"

Lucy Cooke: Well, it would be if it wasn't true. You just have to ask the hyena, for example, the-- the female spotted hyena if she's passive and coy, and she'll laugh in your face after she's bitten it off, you know, it's like… (laughs)

Challenging conventional wisdom is a large part of Lucy Cooke's crusade to improve the reputation of sloths.

But there is a more somber kind of rehabilitation she wanted to show us. This is the Toucan Rescue Ranch near Costa Rica's capital Can Jose. They care for sloths nearly killed by power lines.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How are the sloths injured?

Lesley Howle: So most of the time, it's through electrocution, where it'll just look like-- this straight vine, you know, going through the forest. And so they'll grab a hold of that and then become electrocuted.

Lesley Howle was an occupational therapist who started the ranch 19 years ago. Now she has a team of six veterinarians to treat the electrical burns. Millions of years of evolution could not prepare the sloths for human sprawl. But the vets told us they believe the sloths slow metabolism somehow allows them to recover from injuries that might kill other creatures. The Toucan Rescue Ranch also takes in orphans.

Lesley Howle: This is little Gio.

Lesley Howle: And um - this is Marilyn.

Lesley Howle: And then we have Landon here.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Oh, he's a toddler--

Lesley Howle: And-- he's a toddler.

Lesley Howle: And this is our tiniest, little Benji.

Sharyn Alfonsi: OK, now my ovaries have cracked. (laughs)

It can take up to two years for the orphans to be ready to go back into the wild. We watched as a female named Nosara was prepared for release. She was given a final checkup and a tracking collar before getting a lift to a promising tree.

Lucy Cooke: Off she goes.

Sharyn Alfonsi: And if she falls asleep in the middle of the release, (laughs) is that a bad thing?

Lesley Howle: There she goes.

Voices: Oh. Ooh.

Lucy Cooke: That's a scary moment isn't it?

Voices: Oh. Phew.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Mission impossible has nothing on this, like…

With that high drama behind us, we headed down the Caribbean coast with Lucy Cooke to visit another British scientist.

Becky Cliffe is conducting the first population study of sloths, ever. That might seem like low hanging fruit… it is not.

Zoologist Becky Cliffe, right, told Sharyn Alfonsi about the population study she's doing of sloths. 60 Minutes

Sharyn Alfonsi: Why is it so hard to get scientific data on sloths?

Becky Cliffe: They've evolved over the last 64 million years to be masters of disguise, right? They are so good at pretending to be coconuts and bird nests, then they're hiding from the very people who are trying to-- trying to help them.

Neither of the sloth species in Costa Rica is officially considered endangered. But Cliffe says her staff is suddenly seeing fewer sloths and some are suffering from an illness she suspects may be related to climate change.

Becky Cliffe: We're getting extreme periods of hot dry weather, and then extreme periods-- of prolonged cold and rain. And that is not what sloths have evolved to survive in. What we're discovering is that the microbes in the sloth's stomach that they use to digest the leaves they eat, when the sloth gets too cold, those microbes die. So even though the sloth might be eating and looking well, it's not digesting its food properly. So they're losing energy and they're getting very weak.

Sharyn Alfonsi: It sounds like they're starving to death but with a full stomach.

Becky Cliffe: That's exactly it. It's a really strange phenomenon that I think only happens in sloths. But it's happening here.

For Cliffe to collect data – she has to collect sloths. That's the full time job for her colleague, Dayber Leon. He climbed barefoot up a three-story high tree covered in biting ants, snatching the sloth, then lowering it in a bag.

Lucy Cooke: Come on little one. Hi

Sharyn Alfonsi: That's impressive. So do you have to do that every time you want to get a sloth down?

Lucy Cooke: And this is easy, yeah. (laughs)

The stuffed sloth she is holding is not a gimmick. It was used to comfort the real one, as we helped replace a memory chip in a tiny backpack the sloth wears.

Researchers in Costa Rica are giving sloths "backpacks" so they can track the animal and learn more about them. 60 Minutes

Sharyn Alfonsi: Oh, you're very strong

Becky Cliffe: Very strong. And then lean her back a little bit. Come on, sweetie.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Gosh, this is like dressing a baby.

Lucy Cooke: Done. Wam-bam.

Sharyn Alfonsi: What kind of information does this give you?

Becky Cliffe: We collect a lot of-- manual data, in terms of what type of tree she's in, how high in the tree she is. There's also a data logger inside here, which collects a lot of information about her behavior. So even her micro body movements are being recorded inside there.

Lucy Cooke: Here we go. Yeah, that's a girl.

Thirty two sloths will get backpacks and be returned, slowly, to the wild. Lucy Cooke told us she hopes this study will provide a deeper understanding of an animal we can be too quick to judge.

Sharyn Alfonsi: What can we learn from the sloth?

Lucy Cooke: We can learn how to be more slow and sustainable ourselves, because we need to. You know, we're destroying this planet at-- an alarming rate. And part of that is because of our addiction to speed and convenience, so if we took a few carefully, slowly, digested leaves out of the sloth's book, you know, we might save this beautiful planet and all of the amazing creatures that live on it.

Produced by Guy Campanile. Associate producer, Lucy Hatcher. Broadcast associate, Elizabeth Germino. Edited by Craig Crawford.

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