Splinter (Review)

Splinter

Splinter (2008)

Directed by Toby Wilkins

After watching Splinter, you get the feeling that you've been thrown back into the wayback machine of creature feature horror.

Part The Thing, part Ruins, all fun ickiness. Director Toby Wilkins champions the simplicity of unknown actors, CGI and Savini effects, a wrong place wrong time set up and some parasitic "splinter" creepy crawlies to make the best "monster" movie of 2008.

The Ruins teetered on this premise but I mean how can we really get fuckin scared from plants. Even M Knight fucked that up with The Happening.

Nature can wreak havoc on those pesty biologicals. It reminded me of a friend who told me that his friend went into the wilderness or outback and returned with some sort of fucked up Ebola parasite shit that ate his brain and it took fuckin 3 years to recover.

Now that guy funny enough is a CEO of a dot com.

Splinter is the fear of the microscopic baddie that infects you from the inside out. Everybody can run from an unstoppable slasher or a skyscraper tall monster. But you can't run from monster that once it infects you with a killer disease, you die.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A young couple has retreated to the wilderness for a romantic camping weekend-but the trip quickly spirals into a nightmare when they are car-jacked by an escaped convict and his girlfriend. Thrown together by chance, no one can imagine the terrifying horror that awaits the two couples at a remote and isolated gas station.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Polly (Jill Wagner ) and Seth (Paulo Costanzo) play the city folk and are final guy and girl. One's a naturist the other a Dr. Biology. They get hijacked by Lacey (Rachel Kerbs) and Dennis (Shea Whigham) who are fugitiving to Mexico.

All play monster fodder well. Polly is our "firecracker" and Seth our dorky professor. Dennis the redneck is tough as nails but with some screws loose.

After changing a flat, they stop by a gas station where most of the action takes place. The infected humans are "driven" by our parasite and attack the survivors.

As Polly eloquently says: "It attacks you and you die".

We then see the end of an idiotic police lady by the splintered walking corpses and our rag tag team then start McGyvering ways to call for help by trying to pick up a police radio and then trying to find different ways out.

The most creepy moment is when a severed hand starts to attack, splintered spikes all over. You wouldn't think a walking hand would be fuckin scary, but it is.

Dennis goes all infecty and this requires some unscheduled surgery by Dr. Biology. HACK! CHOP! ARGHHHHHHH! later, Dennis is lacking an arm. Good times.

Soon the group plans their great escape and we have our final battle off ending 80 minutes of great fun.

Splinter is parasiticly controlled, retro virus gone awry, corpse walking hell of a ride. It does 300% more shit in its 1 hr and 20 min and limited budget. It's the mark of excellence on what a good story and solid acting and a few choice CGI effects can accomplish.

Splinter is definitely not a splinter in 2008. It's a big spike of horror movie. One of the 10 best easily.


Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Animal roadkill
Splintered up gas attendant
Splitted human and intestinal gutting
Corpse bashing windows
Severed arm surgery

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Nada

WTF moment

Severed hand comes alive!

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Splinter is a monumental achievement in indie horror done super duper right. Like Slither and all the other gooey, grossness creatures that wreak havoc in miniature form, it's all about the chills and goosebumps you get from knowing one little scratch and you're infected.

Because nobody wants to have to go out by having splinters grow out of em. Right?

Rating:

Check out the trailer below.





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Categories: american horror, feast, monster movie, splinter, splinter review, splinter trailer, the host, the mist