PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Toby Wilkins’ creature feature body horror film, Splinter, was released 15 years ago on October 31, 2008. Let’s take a look back at this little known genre gem.
Synopsis:
Trapped in an isolated gas station by a voracious Splinter parasite that transforms its still-living victims into deadly hosts, a young couple and an escaped convict must find a way to work together to survive this primal terror.
Splinter was directed by Toby Wilkins (Teen Wolf TV series), written by Wilkins, Ian Shorr (Training Day TV series), Kai Barry (The Operative 2015), and stars Paulo Costanzo (Royal Pains TV series), Shae Whigham (Boardwalk Empire TV series), Jill Wagner (Teen Wolf TV series), Charles Baker (Breaking Bad TV series), Rachel Kerbs (Heist 2015), and Laurel Whitsett (Super 2010). The special FX were headed by Ozzy Alvarez (Army Of the Dead 2021) and Quantum Creation FX’s Christian Beckman (War of the Worlds 2005) while the creature was created by Frank Langley (TRON: Legacy 2010), although he’s uncredited.
An urban couple, Seth (Costanzo) and Polly (Wagner), try camping on their anniversary, only to find that they’re not too good at it. They decide to call it a night and stay at a hotel instead. As they’re driving, they’re carjacked by convict-on-the-run, Dennis (Whigham), and his strung out girlfriend, Lacey (Kerbs). This is only the beginning of their bad night. As they’re driving, they hit some kind of spiky animal in the road that pops one of their tires. Lacey wants to check on the animal.
She sees this:
Yes, that’s a dead animal with rattling black spines sticking out of its mouth. And while she’s freaking out, Dennis gets a tiny black sliver in his finger while changing the tire, apparently from the thing that they hit.
And this begins one of the most disturbing body horror films I’ve ever seen. All the Splinter fungus needs to do is prick you with one of its bristling barbs to infect you, spread itself to you, and make you a part of it. It feeds and grows beneath your skin, scratching through your veins as it spreads, before sniffing out the closest warm-blooded creature and chasing it its with obsidian-like, spiny appendages. When it makes contact with the new life form, it snatches it and melds it into your own body.
There is no antidote or treatment. Once it’s in you, there’s no hope. You watch your infected body contort and break in the most grotesque ways, your bones snapping like celery stalks (that sound!), your joints ripping out of your sockets, as your own anatomy betrays you. Helpless, you are witness to your own destruction, one black quill at a time.
Splinter has a very small cast, with only six names on the roster – the two couples, a gas station attendant (Baker), and a cop (Whitsett) that doesn’t even make it past the gas station front door. Then there’s the creature, a thing that looks like something Sid from Toy Story would have living under his bed, all broken pieces mashed together with no rhyme or reason. It’s never shown in its entirety, just glimpses of a flopping arm or a crushed head, its legs the only humanoid quality as this mass of failed evil Playdo experiments that chases you to touch you… just once. This was a great way to invoke dread and set the audience’s imaginations aflame. If you can’t see it, your brain fills in the blanks, and your mind is a much scarier place than anything created in an FX lab.
I’ve always thought that the characters in Splinter react in a more natural way to their circumstance than in other horror movies. There isn’t a damsel in distress who needs saving, and there isn’t a big hero that jumps up to save the day. These are just people. Seth happens to be a biologist, so he just wants to study the fungus at first, even as it reanimates a human hand that starts darting around the gas station floor. He reminds me of Hodgins from Bones. But I digress.
He gives a bit of exposition into what’s going on without being heavy handed about it. He’s just a scientist making an observation. He could be completely wrong, for all we know. Polly is the one we think will save everyone. She’s hopping around the place like Ash in a Deadite horde, ready to do whatever needs to be done, including setting their own building on fire to get rid of this bloodthirsty parasite. Dennis only cares about two things: Lacey and getting to Mexico. He’s on the run because he just escaped from jail and doesn’t really care about the impending monstrosity. He just wants to get out of the US, and he’ll sacrifice anyone to get his way. But after his girl, Lacey, is killed by the aberration, his resolve breaks. His tough guy exterior is gone.
The one who saves the day is a surprise to everyone.
If you’re looking for an original, action-packed creature feature with a double dose of body horror, grab yourself a copy of Splinter. It is, IMHO, the best of its kind.
