Format: Streaming video from Hoopla Digital on the Nook.
One of the reasons I enjoy low-budget horror films is that in the hands of the right person, wonders can be worked. A good, inventive director, willing actors and a creative team can do a lot with a little. It’s why I love little movies like Pontypool. A good premise is created and a lot is done to ramp up tension, with a little bit of practical effects used to heighten the realism, and there’s your movie. Splinter is like that. I can’t imagine that this was made on much more than a shoestring, but it’s got an earnestness that really works for it. It’s creative and inventive and has a truly brutal scene near the end that I found difficult to watch.
Splinter is also a movie that doesn’t screw around, and it can’t at only 82 minutes including the final credits. Fifteen minutes in, and we’ve established that there is a horrifying creature, we’ve got main characters trying to have a romantic camping weekend, and a couple of criminals who happily carjack our campers. Our couple is Seth (Paulo Costanzo, immediately recognizable if you’ve ever seen the show Royal Pains) and Polly Watt (Jill Wagner). When they accidentally destroy their tent on their one-year anniversary camping trip, they return to the road to be carjacked by wanted fugitive Blake Sherman (Charles Baker) and his junkie girlfriend Lacey (Rachel Kerbs). Blake and Lacey just want to get to Mexico to elude the police, and Seth and Polly are their ticket there. Unfortunately, they hit an animal in the middle of the road.
