When ‘Slaughterhouse’ becomes ‘Slotherhouse,’ you know that you are about to be entertained with a horror-comedy. Matthew Goodhue goes one step ahead rather than making Slotherhouse (2023) a regular horror-comedy film. He puts a killer sloth in it with a message to deliver to the human race. The film is all-in-all a good take on the genre and has that nitty-gritty of bizarre comedy, one that you expect in horror comedies all the time. But, most importantly, this film delivers a well-known awareness in a rather twisted way.
*Spoilers Ahead*
Sotherhouse (2023) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
Social media plays a particularly crucial role in the never-ending loop of validation. One that happens with our protagonist, Emily, who doesn’t have many followers on her Instagram handle. She is not a bad person; she doesn’t even want an animal to get injured. But, amidst the dimension we all live in, she is forced to envy one of her classmates, Brianna, who has thousands of followers.
We are introduced to the Sigma Lambda Theta House, where Brianna is campaigning for the presidential election. If she wins this time, she will be the first woman to win the election for three consecutive years. However, these fun days in college are wasted on such silly excuses of being popular. Emily somehow wishes to be the president, to be known for once in her three years of college. Well, since she knows that her mother was elected once as a president of the house, her need to be one just escalates with time.
Her friends Madison and Zenny support her, knowing that she is different from Brianna. For Emily, being surrounded by friends rather than voters who pretend to have your back is important. But, as time goes on, this constant need for approval grows within Emily, and one day, in a shopping mall, she accidentally meets a man named Oliver while rescuing a dog.
That man lights the candle in the darkness, saying that he has a lot of pets, and in today’s world, social media loves an influencer with an adorable pet. This finally hits Emily, and she feels the urge to pet something. She thinks of the possibilities of becoming a president. She takes her time to think. Later that night, Ms. Mayflower tells her that her mother used to be one of the kindest presidents ever, and she thinks that Emily should stand up for the election. Emily finally decides to call Oliver to bring a pet.
How does Emily get the Sloth?
At the film’s beginning, we see a sequence where a cute sloth moves very slowly, reaching for some flowers, and then suddenly, a crocodile grabs him from the back. Later, we see that the little sloth kills the crocodile and regains his strength while some poacher hits him with a tranquilizer. They put him in a bag to sell him to one of their clients for big money.
Oliver buys the illegal animals from the dark web and then resells them to other clients. When she pitches to Emily about a sloth, he mentions the sloth we saw earlier. Oliver treats the animals very badly. He keeps them in cages, throws things at them, and perhaps doesn’t care much for them. All he cares about is the money these animals can generate for him.
When Emily texts him, he assures her that he can deliver the sloth the following day. Later, he ignores the tablets the poachers give him to give to the sloth so that he doesn’t gain full consciousness. However, Oliver ignores that and brings the sloth out of the cage. The sloth attacks him, and the following day, when Emily arrives at the spot, she finds nothing but the sloth.
She decides to bring him with her as, due to the accident last night, all the cages are now open, and she sees a shadow of a tiger roaming inside the house. She fears that the other animals might attack the sloth, so she brings him to the house. By now, Brianna knows that Emily is planning to compete against her in the presidential election.
She confronts Emily, and the box where the sloth is kept falls from upstairs. Emily runs to the sloth and picks him up gently. Seeing such adorable creatures with Emily, everyone starts to notice her. She becomes very popular soon, and it seems Brianna has the chance to lose. However, Madison is the only person who hates seeing all of these facades. She tells Emily to drop the sloth back where it belongs.
Seeing a wild animal being taken without proper paperwork, Madison already knows that this is the work of the poachers. She requests Emily to take back the sloth where it comes from before something nasty takes place. The sloth even cuts Madison’s hand when she tries to reach him. Emily doesn’t know what to do as Zenny comes in and says that the sloth can have a good chance if she wants to win the election. They even name him Alpha.
Why does Alpha start killing the women at the House?
Since the arrival of the Sloth, Brianna has been losing her grip on the house, and now she appoints Sarah to get rid of Alpha. On that night at the party, when Emily enjoys getting along with everyone, Sarah takes Alpha and places him outside the House. She is sorry for doing such a vicious thing, but she knows that Brianna will be very angry with her if she doesn’t do it.
However, we see Alpha killing Sarah with his claws later that night. Other residents at the house start wondering about Sarah while Alpha roams and kills a random woman. The reason behind these killings can be Emily’s photo with Oliver.
That night before the party, Emily gives Alpha the tablets to stabilize him. But, right after Emily goes to dress up, Alpha goes through Emily’s laptop and finds out about the selfie that she took with Oliver. Alpha remembers how badly Oliver used to treat him. He thinks that Emily will do the same as she tries to give him the tablets. Alpha throws away the tablet and thinks everyone around Emily is a threat to him. So, he decides to kill everyone.
Slotherhouse (2023) Movie Ending Explained:
Is Emily able to Kill Alpha?
On the morning of the election, when everyone is almost certain that Emily is going to win this year’s election, Madison comes and grabs Alpha. Emily confronts her, and Madison tells her that she is going to return Alpha to where he actually belongs. Meanwhile, Alpha grabs Madison’s phone from the back and throws it away. Madison goes to pick it up, and a van hits her, leaving her seriously injured.
Emily goes to the hospital and tells Madison that she will return to Alpha the following day. She comes back from the hospital before the voting starts, and without any doubt, she wins the election. Amidst all the celebration, Alpha sneaks into Emily’s car and goes to the hospital where Madison is being treated. Alpha clicks a selfie with Madison and uploads it from his own account. He gives a nice name to his profile even – ‘killersloth.’
Before Alpha can successfully kill Madison, a nurse enters the room, and Alpha runs back to the House. Back in the house, where everyone is celebrating Emily’s victory, Alpha is busy killing all the women. At last, Ms. Mayflower brings the first killing blow at Alpha. However, even she fails to cause any major harm to him. She dies saving Emily from Alpha, but soon, Emily finds herself in a one-on-one situation with her sloth.
Before dying, Mayflower tells Emily about sacrifices that must be made if she wants to be a leader. By this time, Madison, Zenny, and Tyler (Emily’s boyfriend) arrive at the scene, and they successfully rescue Emily. But, after Ms. Mayflower’s death, Emily feels the urge to solve the problem that she has unknowingly created. She knows that Brianna is still alive inside, and her responsibility as a leader or president is to save her.
She decides not to leave her behind, no matter how pathetic she is to her throughout. Emily discovers that Alpha is wearing the tiara that the president of the house wears after winning the election. Emily confronts Alpha and puts some part of the tiara inside his skull. Eventually, Emily shoots Alpha, ending his life once and for all.
Before dying, Alpha points his claws to a picture of the jungle in Panama and says, ‘home.’ None of this would have happened if the poacher hadn’t captured him. He is meant to be a wild animal, living on his own terms inside the forest. Instead, he is brought into the circus, and now he adapts himself even to have an Instagram account. This is the message the film offers in the most bizarre way.
In some ways, we are ruthlessly killing each other emotionally in the world of social media. That ‘killersloth’ profile can be any one of us who competes with everyone around to become the top of the lot. Alpha is the mirror that we all should look into, at least once, and find out where exactly we are going with this. This race… is it worth more than friendship, brotherhood, sisterhood?
At the end of the film, we see almost the same location where Alpha is first shown. We see a crocodile suddenly run away from something. A little girl finds out that a sloth is coming down from a tree. She finds it very adorable and clicks a selfie with him. The crocodile clan remembers what the sloth clan is capable of. However, the human clan, just as naive as we always have been, fails to learn from our mistakes over and over again.
