Blu-ray:
DVD:

Cert:

Running time: 83 minutes

Cat no: ICON70165

Year: 2008

Pressing: March 2009

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 12 plus extras

Picture: 1080p High Definition

Sound: Dolby TrueHD, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English

Subtitles: English for hearing impaired

Widescreen: 2.35:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £15.99 (DVD), £24.99 (Blu-ray)

Extras: Mini-featurettes, Audio commentaries

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Director:

Toby Wilkins (The Grudge 3, Kidney Thieves, Splinter, Staring at the Sun, Tales from the Grudge, TV: Devil's Trade)

Producers:

Kai Barry and Ted Kroeber

Screenplay:

Kai Barry, Ian Shorr and Toby Wilkins

Original Score :

Elia Cmiral

Cast :

Seth Belzer: Paulo Costanzo
Polly Watt: Jill Wagner
Dennis Farell: Shea Whigham
Lacey Belisle: Rachel Kerbs
Blake Sherman Jr: Charles Baker
Sheriff Terri Frankel: Laurel Whitsett

Splinter is one of those weird horror-style films that bases itself in having no well-known stars, and it doesn't suffer for that.

We begin, seeing a loving couple driving for a weekend away from it all, camping by a lake. Seth (Paulo Costanzo) is a biology PHD student, which helps him being the one who can understand the way the eventual baddies you see come about and move around, while Polly (Jill Wagner) is clearly way out of this geek's league, but for some reason, she loves him.

They're flagged down by a redneck couple. We know they're a bad lot because (a) they're portrayed as rednecks and (b) the man of the couple, Dennis (Shea Whigham), has a gun concealed about his person. Also, the girl, Lacey (Rachel Kerbs) looks so drugged out that it's amazing she can stand up. Before too long, as they're all having to change a tyre, Dennis gets a splinter from a burst tyre, which seems to be causing him some great discomfort as time goes on. Naturally, this signals something bad is going to happen to him.

Over the course of the 80 minutes for which this film runs, we see the result of a man infiltrated with spikes, body parts start moving about including a hand jumping about like an evil 'Thing' from the Addams Family, then gory stuff happens with very quick cuts in editing so it's not easy to see how people cop for it. Hence, there's no real scares, but it does have some nice tension at times.

It's difficult to recommend this as a purchase since, the question is - how often will you watch a film that's based on thrills that aren't usually repeatable for the same effect? That said, my favourite moment, which is gory-ish, comes at 37:54 as Seth looks towards the petrol station entrance door - perfect timing!

Finally, a mention that Jill hosts the US version of Wipeout, the gameshow with the big red balls, and from the look of her I can see why they then chose Amanda Byram for the UK version as they're very similar looking.

Splinter is my first Blu-ray disc but I've experienced HD before and understand what I'm to expect. As such, the picture and sound are flawless. The film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks as highly detailed as you'd expect a high-definition picture to look which, in layman's terms, is like being able to watch on a larger screen but with the definition increased accordingly so it's not just a case of blowing up what you were last watching on a 32" screen which just results in getting a not-particularly-great picture. For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen.

The sound comes in Dolby TrueHD, DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 formats, plus a PCM stereo one if you haven't got any form of Dolby Digital/DTS equipment. I haven't got a Dolby TrueHD setup, which allows for a 7.1 surround speaker setup, but then I haven't got the room for that either, so DTS 5.1 will do nicely, sir. Highlights come with some excellent split-surround FX for ambience and also very disturbing bone-cracking sounds when the dead start walking again...

The extras are surprisingly sparse for a Blu-ray disc given the amount of space available, but begin with a couple of podcasts: The Wizard (1:09) about the guy who organises the pyrotechnics and How to make a splinter pumpkin (2:19) in which Jill Wagner talks us through this Halloween Blue Peter-style exercise.

There's a few mini-featurettes that do exactly what they say on the tin and mostly feature director Toby Wilkins talking: Building the gas station (1:53); Weather: Lots of it (1:56) - about the Oklahoma drenching rain; Shooting digitally (2:23) - about how it was filmed; Make up and creature tests: The Splinter creature (4:06) - looking at what the thing turns into; HD-net: A Look at Splinter (4:34) - an overview of the premise along with some clips; and Conceptual art gallery: The Creature (1:26) with some eerie music over the images.

If Audio commentaries are your bag, there's two here. One from the director and the three leads, and one also with the director but then also with cinematographer Nelson Cragg and film editor David Michael Maurer.

Oddly, after each extra plays out, it takes you back to the main menu, not the extras menu. Why?

Prior to the main menu comes something that should've been left behind in the age of rental video - trailers for forthcoming DVDs - well, just one in this case. There's the 'Extras' menu for this sort of things, hence, I'm not going to mention the title featured here. Elsewhere on the disc, there are subtitles in English only and there are just 12 chapters to the film, which isn't really enough as I work on a basis of one every five minutes, plus a separate one for the end of opening and beginning of closing credits.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2009.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

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