Splinter (2008) Horror Movie Review

by the Pastor of Muppets

***Reader Submitted Review***

Like most horror movies these days, you've seen this one before, and in the beginning you're going to be tempted to switch it off. But you should resist the temptation and keep watching because the movie really does get better. Not tons better, but better enough to hold your interest until the popcorn's gone.

The "good" couple, Seth and Polly, are an implausible pair of young lovers out for a night of romance under the stars. Seth is a skinny, milquetoast weenie with oval professor glasses and the inability to erect a simple bow tent designed to be erectable by people with no hands. Polly is a tough, no-nonsense looker who professes eternal love for this dweeb, even though the very thought of it is enough to make you laugh out loud. So don't think about it.

The "bad" couple are Lacey and Dennis, a somewhat more believable pair of bankrobbers who are in the process of carrying out some dangerous, madcap scheme (which gets fully revealed later on in a bid to make you like the bad guy). Lacy's a heroin or meth addict or something, who needs regular "hits" to keep her from bugging out. Dennis is a (pretty convincing) ex-con who's in love with Lacey and trying to get her to Mexico where they can work on her problem without having to worry about the cops.

And that's the setup. Not long into the movie, D&L kidnap S&P and commandeer their vehicle. Driving at night with a gun to her head (because Seth--a PhD biologist--is so preposterously lame he can't even drive a manual transmission vehicle), P runs over something in the road which gives her a flat tire and pierces the radiator. After changing tires, they make it to an all-night gas station, which is where the fun begins...and ends, as the entire movie takes place in this one remote location. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It works well, given the nature of the beast they have to contend with. Still, the rest of the movie is pretty much your standard holding-out-against-monsters-in-a-convenience-store routine, with the bold and unique plot twist having nothing to do in this case with the creature(s) or the outcome but rather with the character of Dennis, the bad guy.

Dennis, you see, is a murderer with a heart of gold. I won't give away the details, but whereas you were supposed to hate his guts up 'til now, you find out that not everything is as it seems and that Dennis has a few redeeming qualities after all--one of which, of course, is the willingness to sacrifice his life to save S&P, who he was only too willing to shoot in the head one hour before. This is the point at which the movie dies. Clearly, the writer, trying to ride the whole evil-is-good-good-is-evil wave of contemporary atheist culture, wanted to give us a reasonably happy ending while still maintaining his nihilist street cred. His way of doing that is by attempting to make the bad guy out to be the good guy, which unfortunately just doesn't work no matter how hard he wishes he could make it so. Dennis isn't totally evil, and the revelations about his motives aren't so for out there as to be completely incredible, but the blatant and heavy-handed attempt to turn him into a hero finally just doesn't convince.

I'm giving Splinter a B+. It's a well-made movie, with convincing effects (lifted mostly from The Thing). As an experimental piece, it's interesting, which is all to the good, but inasmuch as the experiment ultimately fails, I'm knocking off half a grade. The other half I'm knocking off for Seth's unbelievably idiotic character and the otherwise derivative nature of the movie.