No! You idiots!
After a failed attempt at a romantic camping trip, Polly (Jill Wagner) and Seth (Paulo Costanzo) run across a fugitive (Shea Whigham) and his strung out girlfriend (Rachel Kerbs) who take them hostage in their SUV. The car overheats and they are forced to stop at a gas station out in the middle of the woods which has recently been taken over by a nasty, parasitic creature.
OK, right up front, here are my two biggest problems with this film. First, whenever anything happens involving the creature attacking, the cinematographer has a full-on seizure, making it impossible to understand what the hell is happening on-screen. The first time one of his spells occurred, one of the characters ended up dead, and I had absolutely no idea that it had even happened.
The second, and this is an easy trap for a film like this to fall into, is that the characters are all hopeless stupid. Even Seth, established as in school for his Ph.D in Biology, takes forever to realize what is painfully obvious to anyone watching. It is very hard for an audience to care about the survival of a group if there’s nothing truly redeeming about them. Eventually, I was forced to give up on the stranded humans and cheer the creature on instead. That shouldn’t happen. (And no, I’m not going to get into the emergency field surgery.)
On the plus side, the creature effects are well done. I liked the signature twitch of the splinters, and the way that the parasite caused joints to suddenly and audibly go in the wrong directions. There’s some good sound design behind some of those cracks and wrenches.
While not a waste of time, Splinter is a disappointment. If you’re in the mood for a creature film, or more specifically, killer botany, I’d suggest The Ruins instead.
