[Splinter]
Plot:Set in and around a quiet gas station on a lonely freeway where a terrifying virus-like monster inhabits the bodies of its victims and drives them with a relentless bloodlust.

Cast:Jill Wagner, Shea Whigham, Paulo Costanzo.

My Thoughts:The monster makes the movie.

Review:Most creature features or monster movies are driven by their characters. Atleast at some point. Toby Wilkins "Splinter" however is not one of those movies. It's truly a film focused on it's monster, focused around it's monster, and focused on everything about the monster. It then builds it's characters, hero's and villains from there. The movie starts off with a gas station attendant being viciously attacked by a dog. We see flashes of the dog during the attack, and the dog has long, black, spikes petruding from it's body. Signaling that something is inside it.....but what?

When a couple (Wagner and Costanzo)...on a camping trip, give up on the camping part, and decide to drive to a motel...they are then carjacked by a redneck couple on the run from the law. This after they make one of the biggest horror film mistakes...which is debating on whether or not to pick up a hitchhiker. They should've kept going, but of course...this is a horror film, and the female of the couple was out in the middle of the road, which the viewer can obviously see weighed on the decision of Wagner's character to pick her up and give her a lift.

While driving, they run over the dog from earlier, which after the accident...is still moving, and is filled with black liquid and black spikes. Things settle down from there, and the four drive to a gas station to get petrol, a station which turns out to be the same station where the attendant was attacked earlier. The creature soon seizes the opportunity to attack the stations new arrivals, which leads to a human versus monster scenario, where the living are holed up inside the station store with the creature standing guard outside.

Can they figure out what it is and how to stop it before it's too late? "Splinter" isn't a great character driven piece, but if does offer up a balanced cast. Two villains, two good guys, and plenty of fertile ground for the villains to revert from their evil ways when they all come to the realization that they are all up against this organism, which is really the star of the film. There's no deep backstory to this creature, which while in some films would've been a mistake...works fine in "Splinter". All we are given about it info wise is that it's a living organism which uses spikes to stick people with.

That allows it to enter your body through the cut, and then take over your body. After it does that, it starts to contort your body from the inside, snapping arms, legs, fingers, etc...all to fit it's form better. The infected person is then left looking like a really fucked up piece of artwork like you'd find at a morbid art exhibit in downtown New York City, covered in blood with spikes petruding from their body.

Then there's the usual horror film monster plot points, such as it's use of heat to track victims, the cold being a way to throw off it's tracking abilities, and the creature being able to attack someone even in the smallest form of a stray hand or a finger...i.e. Mr. Furlong in "The Faculty" when his digits are sliced off by Zeke in the classroom scene. Wilkins creates one hell of a antagonist with his monster, which is a very persistent, dangerous, and at some times scary enemy. It's one thing to be attacked by a vampire or a werewolf, which has you holed up inside a place. But imagine a creature which with one prick or scratch from it's spikes can infect you.

And while you're driving away having escaped, laughing, thinking you survived....that one scratch on your hand or arm which you simply view as a battle scar which will heal in a week, will eventually be your undoing. And you wouldn't even be aware of it because you're not familiar with how the organism works. Quite the conundrum indeed. Wagner, who first appeared in anything horror related back in 2007 in "Blade:The Series"...gives a good performance in the movie.

As does Costanzo who is usually not a horror player, but instead mostly sticks to comedy. It's nice to watch his character slowly develop from sort of a coward, into a common sense take charge type. Whigham is the character the viewer will mot likely end up hating right at the beginning of the movie, but might find a certain respect for him near the finale. I did, and it was also interesting watching his character develop and mature as the pic went on as well. Blood and gore don't drench the film, but rather are spaced throughout certain scenes in a well done fashion.

But the movie also offers up enough nicely gory scenes such as body slicing, flesh-ripping-open, and of course those body contortion scenes where the bones snapping and popping will leave you with a sick feeling in your stomach. As will one of the films middle-of-the-movie death scenes, which resembles a fatality straight out of "Mortal Kombat". The films finale is pretty strong in my opinion, but would've been stronger with maybe better sound effects and more oomph to the explosions. As I stated above, we never find out everything about the creature in this movie, mostly pertaining to it's orgins. Is it from space? A science experiment gone wrong?

Who knows...we're left to ponder whether or not that little tidbit of info will be revealed in any future sequels. "Splinter" doesn't have a high body count, or alot of outstanding acting, but it focuses on it's monster and that's what makes it work.

Positives:Great monster in the "Splinter creature", Wagner and Costanzo and Whigham give good performances, the contortion scenes are nicely gross, gory, and bloody. Good creature fx also.

Negatives:The film could've used a few more victims, and the explosions during the finale were sort of weak and didn't pack the punch I expected.

Overall:Three out of four stars.





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