Splintered (2010)

Genre:  Creature Feature
Director:  Simeon Halligan
Country:  United Kingdom
Availability:  Netflix Streaming

Splintered has a lot of good things going for it. The atmosphere, for one, is dense and dark. It adds to the gritty fairy tale feel that seems so prominent throughout the movie. Our heroine, for two, is strong and resilient. She doesn't let a little thing like captivity keep her down. She's resourceful and thinks on her feet and she's not afraid of the big bad wolf.

Splintered also has a lot of things working against it. Like, they never really seem to commit to any particular idea, instead they give us splinters (hey-o!) of nightmares and lores and then leave it up to the audience to make assumptions. And aside from Sophie, our heroine, the other characters just seem like fodder for the kills. Which is fine, I know the rules of the horror movie, I know these people aren't going to live to see tomorrow. But it doesn't hurt to make them interesting or hell, even likable. Instead we get the generic, hopelessly dedicated best friend who seems more like a whipping dog, and her insensitive, over-reactive dick of a boyfriend. Throw in some half-assed love interest and a random quiet dorky guy and you've essentially got the supporting cast for Splintered. Clearly, they put little thought into this.

For the majority of the movie we're whisked from one scene to the next without knowing the clear motivations for why we're going there. Why do her friends follow her into the woods to investigate a werewolf lore if by when they make camp, they all seem pissed to be there? Why, out of five people, is Sophie the one locked up to be protected? Why does her apparent virginity matter? And is the man-beast really a werewolf or just some feral dude who has lost his mind? We never find out the answers to these things but that doesn't stop the movie from charging ahead and using each one of those points to move the story forward.

Fortunately, despite its flaws Splintered remains a fun romp. It's stylish and intriguing and at times even frightening.  And of course the English accents make everything a little more awesome too.

I didn't catch it at the time, sometimes the dialog is a little hard to understand, but the male character's names are Sam, Dean and John. As in the characters from Supernatural. It makes sense once you know. The whole movie kind of feels like a Supernatural episode - curious twenty-somethings go into the woods to investigate a lore only to get themselves into trouble when they find out the lore is real. Except this time Sammy and Dean didn't show up to save the day. Instead, they were slaughtered. C'est la vie.

3 out of 5 stars