Splinter boasts solid performances, reasonable production values, and some delightfully nasty ideas (including the removal of an infected arm by Stanley knife!). It could have been good, but it isn't..
It doesn't matter in the slightest that the film never explains the precise nature of its threat—we don't necessarily need to know that in order to enjoy what is occurring—but for a film such as this to be truly effective, the viewer at least needs to be able to SEE what is going on; sadly, for much of the movie, it's nigh on impossible to follow what is happening to whom thanks to the dreadful wobbly-cam/rapid editing techniques employed by director Toby Wilkins.
The picture is all over the shop whenever anything potentially exciting happens, robbing the action of any tension and rendering shocks ineffective. I suspect that the use of such erratic camera-work was used to disguise sub-par effects, but all it does is make the whole affair extremely frustrating to watch.
Wilkins does at least get one thing right—he puts his lovely lead actress Jill Wagner in a tight vest for the duration—but even the ever-present eye-candy doesn't prevent this from feeling like a wasted opportunity.
It doesn't matter in the slightest that the film never explains the precise nature of its threat—we don't necessarily need to know that in order to enjoy what is occurring—but for a film such as this to be truly effective, the viewer at least needs to be able to SEE what is going on; sadly, for much of the movie, it's nigh on impossible to follow what is happening to whom thanks to the dreadful wobbly-cam/rapid editing techniques employed by director Toby Wilkins.
The picture is all over the shop whenever anything potentially exciting happens, robbing the action of any tension and rendering shocks ineffective. I suspect that the use of such erratic camera-work was used to disguise sub-par effects, but all it does is make the whole affair extremely frustrating to watch.
Wilkins does at least get one thing right—he puts his lovely lead actress Jill Wagner in a tight vest for the duration—but even the ever-present eye-candy doesn't prevent this from feeling like a wasted opportunity.