October 8
#8 Splinter (2008)

I have a weakness for monster movies, which may have something to do with my overwhelming preference for Splinter over the previous night’s viewing, the more ambitious Deadgirl.  Directed by special effects artist Toby Wilkins (I noted minor similarities to another low-budget monster film directed by a special effects artist: Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead), it’s the streamlined tale of two young campers (Paulo Costanzo and Jill Wagner) who are taken hostage by an outlaw (Shea Whigham) and his drug-addicted, hallucination-prone girlfriend (Rachel Kerbs).  Ostensibly they’re just making a run for Mexico, and need the unlucky couple’s car.  But then they strike an animal in the road, infected by some kind of virus which causes sharp splinters to emerge from the skin–and the roadkill continues to move after it’s been flattened.  Later they’re forced to stop at a gas station, where the same virus has infected the attendant; and soon, predictably, they’re trapped within the convenience store while the mutations manifest outside in horrifying forms. 

You can easily check off the influences: John Carpenter’s The Thing and Frank Darabont’s The Mist (as well as the stories which inspired them, by John W. Campbell, Jr. and Stephen King, respectively), plus any number of 80’s and 90’s monster movies around the same theme.  In this subgenre, what’s more important are the effects work, the level of acting, the ingenuity of the direction, and the effectiveness of the suspense, and for the most part Splinter covers itself just fine.  Whigham, who according to IMDB is playing the character of Phil in an upcoming adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s excellent posthumous novel Radio Free Albemuth, is particularly effective as a felon with a conscience.  As with Alien and both versions of The Thing, the fun is in trying to figure out how the menace operates; here, the fact that one of the characters is, conveniently, a grad student in Biology allows plenty of opportunity to investigate the creature’s bizarre nature (it proves to be more of an unintelligent fungus).  Unfortunately, the credibility-stretching climax is more than a tad ridiculous.

Monster movie diehards such as myself will nevertheless find plenty to enjoy.  Also, no zombies are raped by high schoolers, and I now consider that a plus.