Splinter

Splinter (2008)

A young couple out for a romantic weekend of camping runs into a ruthless criminal and his girlfriend and are kidnapped. As if that weren’t enough the gas station that they stop at is home to a strange creatures that at first infects, then kills, and finally uses the bodies of the dead to move around in search of it’s next victim/host. Now instead of making a break for Mexico the criminal and his hostages are trapped inside the gas station with the creature outside looking for a way in. Will help arrive in time to save them or are they doomed? Watch the movie to find out.

Really I can’t recommend more that people should watch this movie. As much as I bemoan the string of remakes that we horror fans are forced to watch hit the theaters there are some good flicks hitting DVD. Splinter is one of those movies, and I really had a blast with it. The story isn’t groundbreaking or new, but it is well fun and exciting. The filmmakers are wise to get the characters to the location as quickly as possible and then start killing them off in terrible ways. It never slows down and makes sure that we get something gruesome on screen every few minutes to hold our attention. Beyond some basic speculation the movie never tries to explain or over analyze the monster outside. Basically it wants to kill and feed on you, enough said. Keeping the story simple allows the movie to just be what it is, a fun little creature feature.

This is a monster movie so we have to talk about the special effects. There is some CGI used, but it is there to add to practical effects. The creature is a guy in a rubber suit that is on set moving around and interacting with the cast. Not only that but the suit is very cool looking as the creature is made out of the bits and pieces of those it has killed. This is really a cool looking monster. I also love the fact that the director does a good job of never showing too much of the creature, so when it is on screen it has more impact. As good as the creature design is the kills and other bloody bits are just as memorable. There is a nice “split” of a deputy, an arm amputation, and the bit with the fingers (you’ll know what I mean) is just gruesome and had me cringing.

I’m a huge fan of monster movies and Splinter is one of the better ones that I’ve seen in a long time. That said this isn’t a perfect movie and there were two things that did bug me about it. First of all there is a bit of the shaky camera stuff used in this movie. This really bugged me because they had the creature and the effects to not do that sort of nonsense. I also was a bit amused at how quickly the criminal changed his tune and how fast the people he kidnapped and threatened to kill became his friends. Oh and the bit about him wanting to give money to the widow of a man he killed was just silly. But even with these two complaints this is still a great movie. I highly recommend it. This is another great release from Magnet, for more information check out their website at http://www.magnetreleasing.com/index.html

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer