warning: mentions of violence, bloody gifs and photos ahead
well, well well. what have we here? a semi-obscure horror movie featured first on the creature feature page? well, yeah because it's one of my all-time favourites and this is MY shrine, thank you very much :p
it features my absolute favorite writing to come out of the 2000's, alongside one of my fave monster designs as well. idk what it is... it just... scratches a certain itch for me i guess. i have to admit, getting infected by some kinda alien-fungus-parasite thing seems to be a recurring phobia for me and the creature in Splinter just does it for me.
so what are we dealing with here in Splinter? it's a movie about a hostage situation gone wrong. that's the simple version.
in the beginning, we're introduced to four completely different characters: a nerdy tech guy (as techy as you can get in 2008 i guess lol), his badass outdoorsy girlfriend, an escaped convict hitchhiking to mexico, and HIS girlfriend who seems to be a druggie going thru withdrawals. the writing in the beginning is about as kitchsy and 2000's-esque as you can imagine until... the couple going out on their camping trip happen to stop by the hitchhiking duo mentioned before, and that's when things start to go down.
i have to admit, i both loved and hated the convict at first. his machismo and snappy one-liners as he pointed the gun at the camping couple had me grinning a couple of times, but i immediately wrote him off as the unlikable asshole who i wasn't going to miss when he inevitably died. every horror movie has that character, right? i figured this guy was it, but man was i wrong.
their car runs out of gas soon enough due to them running over a piece of... spiky goo out in the road, spearing into their gas tank, unbeknownst to the four. they roll up to a gas station and then that's when all hell breaks loose. the druggie gf goes to the station bathroom, only to find a gas attendant's desecrated corpse inside, and then the corpse moves. it lunges at her, infecting her with the black goo spikes it had all over its body and then there goes poor withdrawal gf.
when the victims die and the alien spikes take over the body of whoever it latches itself onto... that's real horror right there. the writing seemed to be corny and predictable up til this very moment, but this movie picks up very quickly afterwards and saves itself multiple times throughout the film.
i think what helps it a lot is the unpredictable nature of this alien creature... thing. we, alongside the characters, are learning about whatever this godawful thing even is in the first place. no one has ever seen it before, it moved differently and its behaviors were completely foreign to us, as we would only see this creature attack in quick flashes behind a shaky camera. i don't think there have been many spiky black goo creatures in horror before, especially not one that behaved like this.
parasitism is a topic that's often found in horror in many diff forms, but nothing like this. a creature that can kill a host and then pilot its dead body around all nilly-willy like that? absolutely crazy. i wonder why it didn't take off even harder! maybe everyone was too busy with the 2008 stock market crash to pay attention. bummer.
no problem, that's what movie hosting sites are for: we get to appreciate the gems of decades past and i'm unbelievably glad that this one is available for free on Tubi as of writing this entry (12/15/24)
i think that a creature that can just take over your body and pilot it to kill everyone around you is both an incredible body horror concept and also a great zombie concept as well. the way that the creature moves the bodies that it uses... absolutely spine-chilling. if you have no idea what i'm talking about (aside from gifs used here), then you MUST watch this movie. nightmare-inducing stuff
the creature doesn't even need a body at all in order to replicate itself; as shown later on in the movie, it can take over any living body part and use it to maneuver itself around and attack anything that it detects. this is when the characters (druggie gf dead; convict, "polly wanna cracker" and nerdy guy are the only ones left) start to put some pieces together. examining the now-severed hand on the floor of the gas station store, they come to the conclusion that it can replicate itself to control whatever matter it infects and that it's heat-seeking. the severed hand has no eyes, but that's not how it navigates. it navigates towards any heat source nearby.
makes sense, right? it needs warm living bodies to latch onto so it can breed... so that freezer in the back of the store is looking more tantalizing by the second. thinking quickly, they barricade themselves into it when the infected hand Idle Hands itself at them inside the building they've barricaded themselves into. their escape plan now hinges on whose body temperature is the lowest so the person can hobble out to the car undetected by the alien parasite that is still stalking them outside the doors.
quick rewind first. a cop lady pulls up to the scene a little bit before all of this happens, and the severed hand is actually hers. well... her corpse's, anyways.
the way that the alien thing gets her and then has her slithering all over the building once she's got is just... wow. just watch her scenes for a real dread-inducing paranoia. geez louise
the writing really does get so much better as the movie goes on. the convict happens to get a little nick in his finger that sloooowly spreads throughout his limb and as the minutes pass, it's looking less and less likely that they'll be able to escape before he can get any medical attention. so in the freezer, they do something about it. something that'll have you clenching buttcheeks in sympathy for the guy. this movie is kinda brutal, now thinking back on it. it is... yeah, it's not the easiest watch in the world if you're squicked out by mutilation.
it struck me how at first i started off the story hating the convict, but as the film went on i really started feeling for him a little bit until he ended up being one of my favorite characters in the entire movie. THAT'S how you do good writing, imo!
i'm not spoiling the rest of the movie in case anyone reading this wants to check it out for themselves; like i said, it's an underrated gem of a movie that i feel deserves some kind of spotlight at all here on neocities lol
but yeah, it is absolutely most definitely worth the watch if you consider yourself a horror movie aficionado. don't watch the trailer, it's painfully 2008 and i just feel like the marketing in general didn't capitalize on how suspenseful this movie got. there are moments in the film, y'all. moments!
i love the nerd character. you feel bad for the guy and hate the convict for bullying him so much in the beginning of the movie but by the end, your heart has warmed up (no pun intended) to all of them, even the poor druggie gf who just wanted her puppy back :(
polly watt-- or "firecracker" as the convict calls her-- is a doll. you really get the idea that she's the strong capable type from the get-go and it felt a little heavy-handed in the beginning of the movie (she's the only one of the two who can change a tire and drive stick, apparently.) to punctuate this, convict turns to nerd and says "man you really have a bad case of CDS huh? Can't Do Shit" which earned a snort from me. hey convict man, this is 2008! girls are just as capable as guys! but by the end, you're just like "man this lady really is fuckin wonder woman". she's witty, brave, tough, and still undeniably a kind and caring person above all. the actress really shone in this role, since the way that she played the character must have been difficult to pull off with such intense scenes, but she succeeded 100%. hats off to jill wagner!
i have to hand the boys their flowers, too. shea and paulo, convict and nerdy guy respectively, both killed their roles. you have nothing but negative feelings towards them in the beginning but shea's tough exterior and surprising vulnerability that he gives to his character by the end just has you wanting to hug his bald ass regardless. you think his acting is kinda wooden in the beginning since he's not a very emotive guy, and then he surprises you right up to the very end. paulo does great as the well-meaning but awkward tech dude who likes trees a little too much, and his volunteering to be their ticket to escape in the end has you clenching the seat you're in the entire time. it's nail-bitingly intense.
the creature design is simply sublime, what little we get to see of it in its entirety thru the movie. we mostly stick around with Evil Hand in the store for the most part, but what we can see of the monster when it takes over an entire body or two is... ughhh shudder. the behind-the-scenes concept art for it is DIVINE. quantum did an incredible job, bc from what i've heard of the movie, it was mostly done using practical effects too! absolutely baller. three cheers for quantum creation fx!
overall a 10/10 for me. maaayybe 9.5/10 just bc some parts of the movie seem a little dated. but either way, a great movie to throw onto the tv for a good time. all the better if you can somehow get a lot of friends over at your house for a horror movie night, since the rapid-paced action makes for some wonderful memories. it'll be a hit for sure
it's a fun popcorn flick with a great ending. you'll never go wrong with this one!
thx for reading!
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