Director: Toby Wilkins
Written By: Ian Shorr, Kai Barry
Stars: Shea Whigham, Jill Wagner, Paulo Costanzo
Production Company: Indion Entertainment
Genre: Horror/Thriller
How I Watched It: Alone in my room
What It’s About: A couple out celebrating their anniversary get carjacked and held hostage by an escaped convict and his tweaker girlfriend. They stop to get gas, and all hell breaks loose. A strange splinter-like parasite starts attacking them.
Thoughts: My initial thought actually took me out of the beginning. But only because I couldn’t stop thinking about how the gas station attendant in the beginning is played by Charles Baker, who plays Pete on Breaking Bad. That one’s my own damn fault, though.
Annnyway, moving on. He gets attacked right off the bat by this strange dog…or some sort of animal that looks all spikey….or should I say, “splintery”. At first…I was kinda thinking….umm…is this tiny animal gonna be the main monster in this movie….because that might be lame.
Then we cut to a happy couple out on their anniversary. Polly (Jill Wagner) is really pretty and outdoors-y. Her boyfriend, Seth (Paulo Costanzo) is nerdy-looking and….not what you’d call a Boy Scout. I guess opposites can attract, right? XD Well, they fuck up their tent and head for a motel, when they’re carjacked by Dennis (Shea Whigham) and Lacey (Rachel Kerbs).
They stop to get gas and shit goes down. Trapped in the gas station. Annnnnnd, I’ll try avoid any spoilers from there.
Performances. Shea Whigham is my faaaaaaave. I’ve always enjoyed his roles in various things. What I appreciated about him in this movie? He was a believable southern hick, who didn’t do a damn caricature of the stereotypes. Also, regardless of how much of a dick he is, you really come to love his character.
Wagner and Costanzo do pretty well, but they just don’t stand out to me as much as Whigham. Kerbs, now, she plays a pretty good tweaker. There were moments where she was freaking me out, maaaaan. Also, she’s normally really beautiful, but they did a good job of making her look like shit.
Okay. The creature. You’re introduced pretty early on to the Splinter parasite. It kills people and then takes of their bodies and controls them. You don’t really get to see what it can do until later in the movie, but I looooooooove the final look of the “creature”. Kudos to the effects team on that baby.
I love isolation-style movies. They aren’t isolated the entire time in this movie, but I love the dynamic character changes when they are. Sometimes you just go through enough shit with someone that you can kind of put your differences aside. That played really well in this flick.
My Rating: Huzzah!
Once I got into it, I was in. Lots of awesome special effects. Great characters. Dig it.
Terflix 