Movie of the Week 04-14-09

Splinter (Toby Wilkins, 2008)

An ingenious, wildly inventive little monster movie about four mismatched travellers trapped in a rural convenience store by a spiny, bodysnatching parasite. The fine folks at Magnet Video strike again...

Splinter (Toby Wilkins, 2008)
This horrifically unhinged & insidiously claustrophobic horror flick continues a run of swell B-Movie grisliness (Donkey Punch, Shuttle) from Magnet Video, probably the most interesting label going just now. A redneck ex-con & his meth-freak girlfriend kidnap a helplessly urbane biology PhD candidate & his buxom, but handy, tank-top-with-eyes of a girlfriend & are immediately set upon by some fucked-up cross between a porcupine & the creature from Alien. The quills -- or splinters -- on this creature animate corpses & body parts the way Max Fleischer animated kitchen utensils & soon our motley foursome are trapped in a gas station/convenience store battling severed hands, some horribly contorted & demonically quick dead bodies & their own infected limbs. Splinter also inaugurates an honest to goodness B-Movie star in Shea Whigham (sort of a white trash Robert Carlyle), who imbues his sacrificial rube with some real verve & dimension.