Splinter (2008)

What a beautiful movie!

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Likable characters (even the bad guy, in the end) and an intense plot add up to some good entertainment for me. I did have to pause it a few times and take a break because it was so in-your-face intense. Some folks did not like the shaky-cam effects, and normally, I would be right in there with them. If overused, it is nauseating and irritating to the extreme! In this movie, I think it was used effectively to show the chaotic, happened-in-a-nanosecond experience that occurs in real life violent events. Unfortunately, I've personally experienced some of these in my life, and can testify that they look just like that when you are experiencing them.Give it a watch if you are a horror fan. I don't think you will be disappointed, but YMMV. :-)Much appreciation to the IMDb website crew for the recommendation, because I would not have heard of it or viewed it without that. Thanks!

I am a fan of horror movies; cheesy horror movies, scary horror movies, big budget horror movies, and the latter. However, the unfortunate part about following horror movies is that it can be a difficult genre to articulate masterfully.The movie Splinter makes the most out of what it is given, and it puts into place horrific devices that make the horror genre really shine. The film offers wit so far as having space for individual character development and unique character choices. However, the pacing of the movie is not cogent and the movie steered too far away from what makes a movie scary.Still though, it offers sci-fi aspects to it and is well acted throughout - I give Splinter a 6 out of 10.

Splinter boasts solid performances, reasonable production values, and some delightfully nasty ideas (including the removal of an infected arm by Stanley knife!). It could have been good, but it isn't..It doesn't matter in the slightest that the film never explains the precise nature of its threat—we don't necessarily need to know that in order to enjoy what is occurring—but for a film such as this to be truly effective, the viewer at least needs to be able to SEE what is going on; sadly, for much of the movie, it's nigh on impossible to follow what is happening to whom thanks to the dreadful wobbly-cam/rapid editing techniques employed by director Toby Wilkins.The picture is all over the shop whenever anything potentially exciting happens, robbing the action of any tension and rendering shocks ineffective. I suspect that the use of such erratic camera-work was used to disguise sub-par effects, but all it does is make the whole affair extremely frustrating to watch.Wilkins does at least get one thing right—he puts his lovely lead actress Jill Wagner in a tight vest for the duration—but even the ever-present eye-candy doesn't prevent this from feeling like a wasted opportunity.

Confession time: I got this movie because Jill Wagner is in it. I'd seen her on Wipeout a few times and she has a cool kind of charisma – the only good part of the show (sorry, smarmy, snarky guy hosts). When I saw the preview, I thought "that looks mildly entertaining," then I saw her name and put it on the list.It's a decent movie with a solid concept – some sort of splintery, fungus type thing that feeds off of blood or flesh and reanimates corpses by some splintery, gory but ineffective means. It's a mindless kind of monster, driven by hunger and causing slimy, sloppy corpses to slam repeatedly into barriers like cars, windows and beer coolers.As a writer of paranormal fiction, I should probably have more refined tastes, but I enjoy these horror movies with all the familiar tropes: the beautiful, headstrong girl in her de rigueur tank top, the geeky and hopelessly inadequate boyfriend with round spectacles and just the right kind of "book learning," the savage criminal with a deeply hidden streak of good, and all the various other characters that end up in the belly of the beast.Jill was fine as "firecracker" Polly Watt, and I hope she makes it into more movies soon, but Shea Whigham (incredible in Boardwalk Empire) was the standout. Menacing, laconic and seemingly barely able to contain an oversized amount of rage boiling within him. He got all the good lines, and for good reason.This movie will not change your world view, and it won't make you jump or scream or squirm (though I did look away from a couple of scenes – come on, I was eating a chili dog and steaming human entrails look a LOT like child dogs), but it will scratch the horror itch.--www.cowboyandvampire.com--