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Clever concept: a pair of fugitives (Shea Whigham and Rachel Kerbs) take a young couple (Paulo Constanzo and Jill Wagner) hostage, only to have their getaway plans disrupted by a pretty prickly piece of roadkill. As it turns out, even the slightest contact with one of these parasitic barbs will come to cause one’s own bones to spike out and snap in every which way they ought not to.

Brisk execution: it doesn’t take but ten minutes for our protagonists to find one another, and it takes maybe ten more for them to all make their way to the local gas station, where most of the action proceeds to take place. It’s a wisely confined environment, and one tapped for a reasonably impressive amount of impressively reasonable resources before the sum total of eighty minutes runs its well-paced course.

Good effects: first-time director Toby Wilkins has proven himself enough already in the field of visual effects to make them work on behalf of the story’s simple setting, instead of in spite. The practical techniques and spot-on sound work on display make every crack and crunch hurt, matching the creep potential of such a unique threat at every turn, and he isn’t one to entirely flinch from the gorier moments when they do crop up.

Better performances: an interesting dynamic develops between the three remaining in the gas station – don’t worry, I won’t name names – as their struggle for survival continues into the latest night and earliest morning. The roles are only as fleshed out as they need to be, and each performer does a fine job of filling in the blanks whenever possible; I’ll only draw attention to the fact that Whigham’s increasing reliability as a character actor in parts big and small does not go challenged here.

All in all, it comes together as a brisk, bloody, B-grade creature feature that doesn’t drag and brings enough fresh talent to well-worn material to merit a look-see. For me to say that 'Splinter' had plenty of spunk or some such would be to sell it short; if anything, it’s the rare modern horror flick that fans won’t feel the need to apologize for it.

link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=17984&reviewer=409
originally posted: 11/04/08 15:46:28
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