Splinter: Critic Reviews

A nifty horror movie that doesn't claim to be anything other than a zippy exercise in creature-feature entertainment.

With Splinter, the director Toby Wilkins honors the conventions of the horror genre with skill and enough wit to keep the scares sharp.

This is classic Halloween fun, with plenty of thrills and chills, surprisingly believable performances, and healthy doses of humor.

[Director] Wilkins understands that what we don't see is often more unsettling than what we do. But he also throws in plenty of well-earned gore, making this an ideal option if you're looking for a few new Halloween scares.

It's short, taut, nicely shot, well-acted, astutely directed, specific where it might have been generic, original enough to be engrossing and derivative enough to be amusing.

Splinter has a hackneyed gimmick -- dead bodies trying to smash their way into an isolated convenience store -- but I loved it to pieces.

Spare, effective and genuinely frightening.

There have been worse horror flicks, but although this one offers a few scares, it doesn't have a lot of imagination.

Whenever a romantic couple in a movie goes camping in the remote woods, you just know it's a bad idea.

A very efficient and effective (for its budget) zombie-infection-sci-fi-thriller

Everything you expect to happen, does - but it isn't satisfying.

deliver[s] plenty of bang from the filmmaker's limited bucks - but Splinter's greatest strengths, rare for the genre, are its solid characterisation, witty dialogue and charismatic performances.

If you can get beyond one basic narrative flaw, and a low budget dynamic which provides limited looks at our Bottin-inspired fiends, Splinter will come as a wonderful little fright flick surprise.

This is a terrifying film.

It's good, it's just nothing really groundbreaking or special.

Four people. One Kwik-E-Mart style shop. One crazed creature. Splinter proves that's all you need for a chilling horror movie.

Fans hoping for a substantial work are left with no real statement or vision, while horror aficionados have already seen this film a dozen times before.

This slightly elevated generic effort is still essentially what they mean by disposable entertainment.

The movie's awash in blood, sure, but it has more brains on hand than just the ones dripping down the wall.

Excelling in creative scaring skills, Splinter boasts thorny issues like psycho fungi who go mobile, nuclear hedgehogs, homicidal human porcupines, impromptu carnivorous rooftop dining on half a state trooper, and a dangerously defrosting savior on ice.

Bloody, screamy, creepy crawly comfort food that cuddles B-movie horror convention without fatigue.

If you've seen The Thing or The Evil Dead, you've seen much of Splinter, but it's a lean, fast-moving and fun little flick that doesn't waste any of its scant 82 minutes.

The film lacks that spark of originality or humor or thematic resonance that might have elevated it from forgettable genre time-passer to something more lasting.

Splinter is about a scary as a tussle between four vacationers and a small porcupine.

a nifty example of the horror-movie as thrill ride