Splinter (Dir. Toby Wilkins, 2008)

Born and bred Brit Toby Wilkins, known primarily for his work in the visual effects sphere presents us with Splinter, an ususual little film, that puts an interesting new spin on things.

Splinter focuses on an unlikely group of four, the first couple, the bookish PhD student, Seth and his outdoorsy girlfriend Polly, and the second couple, who Seth and Polly are carjacked by, strung out Lacey and her seemingly bad to the bone boyfriend, Dennis.

As Polly drives the criminal couple and poor, clumsy Seth to an unknown destination, decided on by Dennis, she hits something in the road. Lacey checks this out with Seth, and she believes it to be her dog, Ginger, who Dennis explains died quite a while ago. While changing a burst tyre, Dennis sticks his hand on a splinter and the foursome only just make it to a deserted gas station before the car completely overheats.

All this preamble is worth the wait for what occurs next. Turns out that weird splinter thing is a strange fungal viral deal, that infects you like blood poisoning and takes over the infected part of the body and spreads quickly throughout.

Sexy and gymnastic, huh?

Being a massive fan of The Thing, I really enjoyed the idea that each part of the infection worked as a separate consciousness, for the good of the whole, but capable of working on its own. A particularly nasty, but bloody fantastic scene occurs when an infected person/corpse tries to claw its way in, through the overnight cash deposit thingy. Ripping clean from it's bodily anchor, the arm scrapes its skin along the edge of the opening, tearing itself and leaving bloody shreds of flesh in its wake.

I thought this move was inspired, putting an interesting spin on both the body horror genre and the more recent influx of biohazard/contamination movies. The infected stagger around, bones a' poppin and blood a' oozin, trying to get their hands or toes or weird porcupine quills near our fearless three inside the gas station.
No, I guess it doesn't break any new ground that hasn't already been broken by The Thing or any 'infection' movie. But it was a throughly enjoyable film, enough nods to convention to be amusing, original slants and some pretty damn inventive ideas.

One of the only flaws in this film was the dialogue. I would have to watch the film again to discern if it was actually the dialogue, or the delivery that was my bugbear. Shea Whigham is given the best lines, which is to be expected really. He does deliver them so well :)

 I crush on Shea Whigham, Je Regrette Nien.

The charisma of Shea Whigham, as Dennis, is enough to carry the film alone. Now known for his part as Eli Thompson in Boardwalk Empire, this film was released a mere two years after his completely awesome and memorable turn as Eugene in Wristcutters: A Love Story (a film that I have quoted daily since seeing it). The transformation from gypsy punk bassplaying suicide victim to hard as nails redneck is astonishing.

All in all, if you are looking for something easy on the old grey matter, but a good, fun and gory ride all the same, you can't go wrong with Splinter.