Splintered

Great setting. Great atmosphere. Fairly sound premise. Creepy vibe. Too bad all this was offset by terrible writing and dialogue. Acting was hit and miss. Typical dumb moves by the principals and you can see every move before it happens.

Could've been worse but it could've been so much better. It's a good thing the heroine is so easy on the eyes because her character was totally unsympathetic. What a drama queen who manages to overreact to virtually everything. Her chief antagonist is even worse and the fact that they manage to get into some overblown nonsensical argument early on sets the stage for the idiocy that follows.

I saw the UK Premier in Manchester. Due to a technical hitch, no dialogue was audible for the opening ten minutes; initially, I hadn't realised that this was accidental - believing it to be an intentional method of creating an eerie tone. Then, the projectionists remedied the problem and started the film over a again: the clunking dialogue destroyed this potential eeriness and any pathos one might have felt for the lead.

"Splintered" failed to register in any sense: as a horror film, it wasn't frightening or emotionally resonant; one could not empathise with the protagonists; the acting was average-to-poor; the camera work and cinematography (aside from the closing frame - which looked relatively impressive and summed-up the main character's plight) generally added little; the writer's handling of a sensitive social issue was crass and perfunctory...

I can't recommend the film in any sense.

I always have faith in English films. English storytellers tend to be more serene and less anxious than the Americans. Their jokes are usually more subtle, effective, and quite long-lasting. Same as their scare tactics in horror films. Their so-called Grade B films show different classes of the society rather than different qualities. However, this film is an exception. It starts promisingly enough, then gets watered down steadily towards the meaningless ending. You could have seen the film in reverse in the Benjamin Button style and you would get a fine film. Investment in the character, earlier in the film, gets wasted. Nightmares and psychological episodes of Sophie get forgotten for the most part. Little flashbacks here and there do not help. We have seen several examples of good scary low-cost films. Today film-making equipments are of lower price, and filmmakers' skills are not tied with the money. I can watch John Carpenter's Halloween or George Miller's old version of Mad Max several times, and still have no clue what made them so good and so long-lasting, with such a low cost in a time of high-cost filmmaking. People behind this film should play less games, watch less choppy presentations, and return to the classics. It is all there to learn. I realize that there are a lot of people out there who care for moneymaking over filmmaking. But if you can achieve both, why not? Humankind should crave for betterment.

The movie had some good oldschool Jeckyl and Hyde / werewolfy atmosphere, and some good story elements, but the elements I liked the most were left unexplored and undeveloped which means the atmosphere fell flat about halfway through.

The girls were very easy on the eyes, but ultimately there was little left keeping me watching by the hour marker, but with 30 minutes left I decided to give the rest a chance.

One figures out the movie within the first moments you meet Gavin, so the reveal is pretty droll... the gore and music were very mediocre and no opportunities were taken advantage of, in fact I don't think they even had some syncing action in the film with the music... because everything was flat...

The acting was okay, the script thin, but with potential, no decent music score of orchestration, no interesting dialog, and didn't really care much for the characters beyond the physical... so I'd have to say, poor showing:

2/10

You know it's one thing to make people believe one thing and then reveal to them that it might be something completely different. Or is it? But anyway, this movie tries to be clever in many respects par the dialogue and character development. It's all been said and done before and one twist or another do not change the fact, that it is poorly realized.

Of course, this is low budget, so I'm not gonna talk about the effects (that seem decent enough for a movie like this), but it still could have done with a few rewrites. If you haven't watched Teenagers in peril movies, you might find something here for you, but there are so many other (good) movies out there, that you could be watching instead. I hope the filmmakers can come up with a better one, next time around.