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projectcyclops [Film Festival 11.03.09] movie review horror

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Year: 2008
Directors: Simeon Halligan
Writers: Simeon Halligan & Mat Archer & Stephen Trimingham
IMDB: link
Trailer: link
Review by: projectcyclops
Rating: 6 out of 10

One of headlining films at GrimmUpNorth was festival director Simeon Halligan's first feature: Splintered. The GrimmUpNorth horror festival itself was somewhat based around the release of this film, as the producers rented screens at the Printworks Odeon in Manchester as a means to publicise the film, while gathering other various titles to create a one-off festival that managed, as far as I'm concerned, to be a great success. Splintered screened on Saturday evening with a packed-out cinema of eager horror fans, and after a slight technical hitch the film played to great applause. The plot centers around a somewhat emo-ish teenager called Sophie (Holly Weston), who organises a trip to North Wales with her friends, and they drive off in search of a local legend.


The film begins with a young girl, terrified of the scratching at her bedroom door, she hides under the bed as an unseen creature stalks around her room and eventually finds her hiding place and attacks. Sophie suddenly wakes from her nightmare, only to find her father standing over her. He comforts her and assures her that everything is alright now that he's here. From the look in her eyes we see that this isn't much consolation, and suddenly she wakes once more into the real world, alone in her room and back to reality. These first scenes work very well in establishing just how damaged our heroine is, and although she seems fairly normal as she plans a weekend trip with mates, her fixation on the supernatural and lycanthropy points to a pretty messed-up psyche.

We're then introduced to a varied group of teenagers with whom we'll be spending one hell of a weekend camping trip. There's Sam and Jane; a bickering couple constantly on the verge of breaking up, Dean; Jane's kid brother who brings his video camera and harbours a deep crush on Sophie, and lastly there's John; a cocky wide-boy who assumes Sophie is there to meet his hormonal urges. After setting-up camp Sophie explains that the local area is home to a mythical beast that has been mutilating livestock; and suggestible dolt Sam immediately overreacts and starts a blazing row with her, and she runs into the forest in anger, only for John to swagger after her with a few beers, in the hope of getting some action from the vulnerable teen.

Some of the best scenes in Splintered come with the early set-up in the forest, as the kids make camp and adjust to their surroundings, trying to stay rational in the face of spooky rustlings and creepy noises. However, it's when Sophie and John discover a seemingly abandoned mansion that the scares come thick and fast and the pace of the film quickens into all out horror. Halligan has chosen wisely to keep scenes shifting back and forth from the local woodland to the amazing location of St Joseph's; a huge towering estate that used to house a Catholic boarding school for boys, and turns-out to be not quite so abandoned.

Where the film falls down is the simple fact that we've been here before. Teenage camping trip turned blood bath? That sounds familiar... but the writing does manage to help defy the cliches inherent in these kind of flicks. Weston's Sophie is a damaged girl for sure, but she doesn't just sit around screaming for help, instead looking for practical and inventive ways to escape the horror, and often giving as good as she gets when confronted with evil boogiemen. Johnathan Readwin plays Dean as a kid with level-headed practicality, and I enjoyed the fact that when Sam and Jane realise that the others are missing, they actually turn to Jane's younger brother for advice. His wry smiles at Sam's sheer stupidity were spot-on and helped establish him as the brains of the outfit. Sadie Pickering's Jane is a rather one note character, but she comes through in the end. Sacha Dhawan (The Last Train, The History Boys) plays Sam as a snide bully, but even he manages to redeem himself buy act two, albeit somewhat futilely. One of the sore thumbs of the film is a priest who conveniently enters the story to help out the terrorised kids with a few trusty silver bullets. The character does seem somewhat tacked-on, but horror stories use this convention all the time and it doesn't actually detract from the overall story, but rather seems somewhat expected in a film that is, at the end of the day, a decent example of itself.

Horror films are in a strange place at the moment, with characterisation and plot often taking a back seat to visceral gore and sudden jumps and flash-cuts. Splintered takes the age old premise of teenagers in trouble, and satisfyingly takes us on a journey with them to hell and back. Don't watch it expecting anything new, but rather sit back and enjoy as the story unfolds. There are twists and turns, deaths and near-miss getaways and plenty of old fashioned horror.


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