Splinter is the latest film from visual effects master and director Toby Wilkins. This movie is a masterpiece of horror cinema that keeps the viewer both engaged and en-GROSSED the entire length of the flick. The movie centers around a group of people who, through circumstances become trapped inside a remote gas station and are stalked by ravenous parasitic creatures that take control of a person’s body from the inside out by infecting them through small needles that they lodge in their victim’s skin and body.

The camerawork on this film (shot by cinematographer Nelson Cragg) is well done with smooth establishing shots and great angles when it comes down to showing the creatures and gore. Another nod should go to the effects team at Quantum Creation FX who did the practical creature effects for this film. They created a movie “monster” that was for me a cross between John Carpenter’s “The Thing”, and newer generation zombies. Don’t be put off by that statement however because Toby and his team do an excellent job of coming up with an original and scary creature. He gives us what we want from the first ten minutes of the film on: Buckets of blood, no way out for the protagonists, and a seemingly unstoppable force of nature that threatens to destroy them all.

The cast of this movie has some familiar faces, Shea Whigham plays a man bent on escaping from the law with his girl (Rachel Kerbs who excelled in her performance, albeit cut short early in the movie), who carjack a couple out camping (played by “40 Days and 40 Nights” Paulo Costanzo and “Blade: The Series” Jill Wagner, who also does a wonderful extra on the DVD on how to make Splinter Pumpkins that made me laugh). The actors play their parts with great intensity and their characters don’t succumb to the typical horror genre mistakes of stupidity and thoughtlessness. The actors emote and we care for them even though they are really in danger to what is essentially a guy or girl in a rubber suit. Kudos goes to Toby once again though for deciding to use a practical monster rather than optical because you really can tell sometimes when an actor or actress is playing opposite a tennis ball on a stick.

While the pace of the movie is typical and formulaic, you don’t really realize as much until you’ve finished the movie. That is not a slight on the film however, because the movie was so edge-or-your-seat that I didn’t have the chance to even think about that until it was time to write this review. The script was well written (by Kai Barry, Ian Shorr, and Toby Wilkins) and I didn’t catch any of the real trite or unrealistic diatribes the plague their other horror contemporaries. All in all the story was original and easy to follow.

“Splinter” is a horror movie done right. It keeps the viewer on the ride from the get go and doesn’t let up until the credits. Fans of the Horror genre should delight that finally someone understands that we’re tired of corny remakes and cheesy ripoffs. Sometimes we just want a movie to infect us and take us to that dark place where we can let our imaginations run away from us, and Toby Wilkins takes us on that journey to that dark place where things creep and crawl with “Splinter”.

“Splinter” – You’ve Been Snobbed

For more information on “Splinter”, head on over to www.splinterfilm.com