Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The basic storyline may not be so much different from so many other horror films but it at least carries it through with more success than most.The beginning is a little difficult to stomach as it relies on 'young couple in the semi-wilderness', with an annoying 'Beauty and the Geek' twist (which I must admit is still better than 'high school teens'). Add in a slightly deranged on the run criminal and his slightly dim, rather too easily led girlfriend and its seems to be set for the yawn inducing B-Movie cliché cupboard.However, despite Splinter succumbing to a certain amount of clichés, and let's admit that its so difficult not to, it does not prevent it from raising itself above the average The cast is small but efficiently used, and better yet you even want to do more than simply leave them to their fate. This is despite some irritating points, mostly centred around the early scenes of the Geek & From characters. Still they can at least deliver a line and act a scene like they care about more than just the pay cheque which is a far cry from many films of the genre and budget.The location is also minimal being a little bit of anonymous countryside and roads together with an equally out the way American gas station, neither of which stand out as being first choice with regards locations for most films. Here though, once the film moves on past the intro and to the station, it again does well with the confined stage used to good effect in inducing a suitable sense of imprisonmentThe film relies heavily on good old fashioned visual effects helped somewhat by the overuse of shaky cameras and quick cuts. This may be a compromise but the two combine well and so offset most of the negatives of such camera work (most not all, it really needs more steady shots in non- action scenes).Its a short movie too that helps keep things trotting along at a fair pace, and although perhaps a little predictable it at least doesn't do things strictly by the numbers of the pages of 'horror book of movie makers'..... Unoriginal at times, probably more across the whole than individual scenes, but on the whole fairly enjoyable and certainly either a few minutes of your time.7/10...mostly marked down for the clichéd characters and over use of shaky-cam.

Here we go again. Not too sure where to start with this movie, & don't want to give much of it away. Let me start at the beginning... As an avid sci-fi/horror film buff, i was ultimately pleased with this movie. i understand others comparing it to "The Thing" & similar predecessors to this movie. i do not quite agree with that kind of assessment, well partially, but not completely. It did not come off as derivative in my view. As i see it... This was an interesting take on the monster movie tale... it was well done & different. There were well made visual effects, & excellent acting for the most part. My recommendation is you go on & check it out & disregard the reviews, decide for yourself. But if you care to know, my opinion is that this is one worth watching.

I saw this movie around the time that it first came out and I remember thinking that it was fairly good, but nothing I'd watch again. In the interim, I keep seeing this movie popping up on my favorite horror sites as an underrated movie, so I figured I'd give it another whirl.First, the necessary prerequisite is that you have to like low budget movies. If you are going into this expecting the effects level of your summer blockbuster, or top notch acting, you're going to be disappointed. I don't mind indie films, at all, and don't want to judge them on their limitations. Basically, did the movie entertain me? The other ingredient that seems necessary to mention in a review of this movie is the similarities to THE THING. How you judge that may depend on where you, personally, draw the line between "homage" and "blatant ripoff". I never felt it crossed that line into stealing an idea, but certainly lifted some ideas from that horror classic, especially in the way that the organism seems to take control of human bodies and essentially replicate them, as well as its ability for each part to exist separately from the whole.The central plot revolves around 4 people trapped at a gas station by some sort of invading organism that is almost unstoppable. They are barricaded inside a small building with limited defenses against the invading threat, so we get a little bit of Night of The Living Dead, as well.My second viewing seemed to pretty much re-instill what I thought the first time around. This is an entertaining movie that will keep you riveted for the short run time of its' story, but nothing here sticks with me as being a modern classic, or even one of the best indie horrors of the past few years. Shea Wigham is really good, as usual, in the cliché role of a criminal with a good heart. I thought that Jill Wagner does a serviceable job as a strong female lead. Her boyfriend is pretty much annoying and I found myself at times hoping he would die next.The effects are very limited and most of the violence is shot in quick camera angles, which is a good way of hiding their limitations, but also sometimes leaves the viewer wondering what the heck just happened. This was especially true of the first female death in the movie, as you never got any sense of the violence that might lead to her demise. There are some good shots that do serve to show what the director probably really had hidden in his imagination but wasn't able to translate to screen.The creature itself presents some interesting impetus to the movie. As mentioned, it's fairly unstoppable which lends to the feeling of helplessness in our main characters. A few of the infected hosts pull off a really good Silent Hill look with twitchy movements and not-quite-in-the-right-place body parts. Ultimately, to transcend the Thing comparisions, they needed to develop more the plot points they introduced early in the film, such as the oil testing site, or this idea of an old forest nearby. That depth might have helped the movie to elevate from popcorn passer to truly memorably movie.

Confession time: I got this movie because Jill Wagner is in it. I'd seen her on Wipeout a few times and she has a cool kind of charisma – the only good part of the show (sorry, smarmy, snarky guy hosts). When I saw the preview, I thought "that looks mildly entertaining," then I saw her name and put it on the list.It's a decent movie with a solid concept – some sort of splintery, fungus type thing that feeds off of blood or flesh and reanimates corpses by some splintery, gory but ineffective means. It's a mindless kind of monster, driven by hunger and causing slimy, sloppy corpses to slam repeatedly into barriers like cars, windows and beer coolers.As a writer of paranormal fiction, I should probably have more refined tastes, but I enjoy these horror movies with all the familiar tropes: the beautiful, headstrong girl in her de rigueur tank top, the geeky and hopelessly inadequate boyfriend with round spectacles and just the right kind of "book learning," the savage criminal with a deeply hidden streak of good, and all the various other characters that end up in the belly of the beast.Jill was fine as "firecracker" Polly Watt, and I hope she makes it into more movies soon, but Shea Whigham (incredible in Boardwalk Empire) was the standout. Menacing, laconic and seemingly barely able to contain an oversized amount of rage boiling within him. He got all the good lines, and for good reason.This movie will not change your world view, and it won't make you jump or scream or squirm (though I did look away from a couple of scenes – come on, I was eating a chili dog and steaming human entrails look a LOT like child dogs), but it will scratch the horror itch.--www.cowboyandvampire.com--