Splinter

Since I'm on break this week and therefore subjected to the constant loud drone of construction outside my window for 12 hours a day, it's the perfect time to use my headphones and take advantage of Netflix streaming. So I decided to check out this little film -->

This is a fun little movie that goes along great with the summer season. If you're a fan of 'nature goes wild' or even zombie films, I encourage you to check this one out. For my part, it appealed to my fear of 'don't touch it or you're dead' kind of The Blob mentality. When I was a kid, the idea that if you even so much touched with one finger, you were done for, was terrifying. The same goes here - except that The Blob couldn't reanimate corpses or chase after you.

The cast is small - just four people if you don't count the reanimated corpses already infected that they encounter. There's the unfortunate couple who attempt to go camping and the other unfortunate couple on the run from the law. They cross paths - and what begins as a kind of action/thriller soon descends into an all out horror film as they find themselves defending an attack from something they don't understand (and neither do we since we never get a real explanation for this thing - but that just makes it scarier).

One interesting thing about this movie was the dynamic between the couple celebrating their anniversary. The woman was the one who knew how to drive the stick shift, who knew how to pitch a tent, while hubby was a kind of whiny nerdy science loving stereotype. At first I found it a little hard to believe that these two could really be a couple until the shit hit the fan and Mr. Biology Degree actually came in handy as far as observing and understanding how the monsters worked.

The reanimated corpses are scary and nasty looking and move in really messed up ways. My only complaint was that sometimes the movie was edited in a way that made it hard to really get a good look - I thought that the camera could have lingered longer on the corpses as they shuffled around.

The Splinter website says the movie has won multiple awards at Screamfest and other festivals - and they're certainly deserved. You can read about those here:
Splinter website
and also have a look at all the places online that it's available.