Director: Simeon Halligan
CAST:
Holly Weston/Sophie
Stephen Walters/Gavin
Sadie Pickering/Jane
Jonathan Readwin/Dean
Sacha Dhawan/Sam
Sol Heras/John
PLOT:
Five young friends (three guys and two girls) set off into the woods to find the mysterious beast that has been killing animals. But when one of their own is kidnapped the rest of the group goes off to find her as they are killed off one by one.
BREAKDOWN:
I’m going to start off with this statement, this movie is not original or even amazing…but I still loved it. It’s your basic slasher film plot – five friends in the woods and they are each killed off. But when we’re in a sorry state of horror, any new horror film that isn’t a remake I automatically give points too. Of course this film is from the UK. The US doesn’t believe in original horror anymore, so we have to find our horror elsewhere. Lately it’s been France that has been creating the best horror films. My favorite movie of all time is a French film called Haute Tension (High Tension).
But back to Splintered. It’s a little known slasher flick that was VERY hard to track down. It is not on DVD or even online (I know shame on me for looking, but I was desperate!). There is almost nothing about it on IMDB and it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. When I saw the trailer I was curious. I found it on television late at night and I watched it in one sitting. At the end of the film, I wasn’t taken aback or given anything to think about, but we all know my favorite genre of film is the slasher film. The 80’s slasher films are my favorite, so it’s always nice to see a good slasher film.
I loved the directing to the film. It was very washed out and used a lot of dark blue and grey hues. It gave the film almost a Gothic feeling to it. There was always a feeling of dread with each frame of the movie and that upped the suspense.
The soundtrack was decent. It has been a while, but I remember liking it, but it was a bit generic at points, but it wasn’t a horrible musical score.
The cast was actually pretty good. The five teens were decent and well acted. There wasn’t much character development, but the actors made me care with their likable performances. The standout would be Holly Weston as Sophie, our heroine. She was my anchor to the film and she pulled me in the moment she was onscreen. She is beautiful, likable, and gave a great performance. I was really rooting for her to survive the entire movie. We don’t get too many great heroines these days, so it’s nice to have another awesome heroine to add to the list. Sophie was a really smart character who while held captive, didn’t just sit back and wait to be saved. She tried every form of escape she could think of and she was a real fighter. She was smart and took everything into her own hands. She was what made the movie for me.
The rest of the cast held their own. I found Stephen Walters to be effective and creepy as (the is he or is he not the killer) Gavin. The other four teens were decent. They didn’t really stand out though. More character development would have heightened the stakes of them. We didn’t really learn too much about the other four, which is a shame. But I still found a way to like them. That girl who played Jane though has a GREAT scream.
The violence was okay. They got the job done with some nice bloody kills. There was a GREAT stabbing in the eye, a sweet bloody impaling, and some bitten necks, but I couldn’t help craving more gore. But what I got was still pretty wicked.
I also loved how the heroine, Sophie had a past. It added more to the film and made it a little bit more than JUST a slasher film. It added to her character arc and worked on me.
Again the movie isn’t perfect. Like I said outside of Sophie, the other four teens could’ve used more character development to make me care about them more. We didn’t learn too much so in my end, I only really truly gave a damn about Sophie (again good job girl!). There was one rather stupid dream sequence where one character wakes up in the car alone, which makes no sense. Why would his/her friends leave them alone with all the doors open? It was too obvious that it was a dream sequence. There were also some dumb character moves, like finding a dead carcass so they decide to venture deeper to see what did it. STUPID MOVE!
My biggest gripes though are with the ending. The ending fell apart for me. A priest was thrown into the film out of nowhere, and I could’ve done without him. He added absolutely nothing to the movie and didn’t make much sense to me. Another character twist was thrown in and it lessened the stakes for me, because I found Gavin to be a creepy man and when the other character was thrown in I found him to be more ridiculous then scary, which is a shame. Also when Sophie goes up against the killer she screams “I am not a virgin” and it lessens the impact of the scene because what could have been a serious scene becomes kind of stupid with her screaming that, but there IS a nice chase scene before the scene and there is some decent gore. I’ll just say this: a crucifix is put to good use. Also at the end police officers and paramedics appear out of nowhere! Where did they come from and where did they know where to be? I don’t remember anyone calling them but then again it has been a while since I last saw the movie. I found this to be a plot hole that annoyed me.
But overall I had a great time with the movie. I had a lot of flaws with the film but it couldn’t stop me from enjoying this movie. I hope to see it released one day because I want to own this DVD. I loved the movie. I wonder though if we weren’t in such a sorry state of horror films, if I would’ve loved it so much. The answer is I probably would have given it a lower rating, but who knows. I recommend the movie.
OVERALL GRADE: 8.5/10
