'Splinter' review

Jill Wagner and Paulo Costanzo (Credit: Magnet)

Seth (Paulo Costanzo) and Polly (Jill Wagner) decide to spend their anniversary on a camping trip in the wilderness but their plans take a detour when they run into escaped con Dennis (Shea Whigham) and his off-kilter girlfriend Lacey (Rachel Kerbs). Things take a turn for the worse when the unlikely quartet encounters a parasitic creature that uses its victims’ corpses to satisfy its craving for blood.

The buzz: Brit director Toby Wilkins makes his feature debut with this low budget self-proclaimed throwback to creature features of the ‘70s and ‘80s, most notably John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” For what it’s worth, the movie won six awards, including best picture, at the recent Screamfest Horror Film Festival in Hollywood.

The verdict: Even with a running time that relies on drawn out credit sequences to reach 80 minutes, this is one tedious horror film. Whenever the pace picks up for the all-too-infrequent creature attacks, the suddenly excitable camerawork and editing only renders the action incoherent. The performances are a notch above what this sort of thing requires, but not even that explains how this derivative dud evaded its logical home as a Sci Fi Channel premiere.

Did you know? Wilkins directed the horror shorts “Tales from the Grudge” and is working on the Japanese remake franchise’s direct-to-video sequel “The Grudge 3.”

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