I'm not exactly certain what to make of this movie. At first it starts out with a bunch of (surprise) college kids on a car trip and then moving out into the woods. Rather than the epic story line that almost always takes place in the woods in movies like this, it instead continues to surmise that the whole affair of being chased by a 'werewolf' is instead just a dream, much like night terrors one has as a kid. The college students, which quickly turn into teenagers with high school drama, start fraternizing about sex, who is getting laid, how it matures a person, and how virgins need to get laid. This is not original of course, and serves as fuel for the fire later on. As always, their fighting and angst is quickly forgotten as the movie transitions into a more common medieval modeled 'brutality' flick. People get attacked, flesh wounds are common (gore is surprisingly absent) and the very nature of the way of God, virginity and chastity is questioned.The movie quickly changes into something else as the girl gets away. She actually sees the light of day along with two of her surviving friends. This is a nice touch to a movie which was otherwise a miserable affair to watch. Not only could the entire church scene have been done away with, but the movie seemed to insist on showing this dreary chapel for the duration of the movie. It would have been good if this movie featured the cast running and then leading up to the scene of her escaping with her friends. The ending of the movie truly is scary – she looks like she is possessed.I do recommend the movie, but be prepared for an otherwise lackluster performance throughout until the latter part of the film.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/?p=2938)

SPLINTERED is a near unwatchable shot-in-the-woods slice of British horror, not to be confused with the excellent American horror flick SPLINTER, in which Shea Wigham fought a horrible monster at a gas station. This one has almost no story, just a bunch of unlikeable characters travelling out into the Welsh woods where inevitably they meet their deaths in various unpleasant ways.It's the kind of story which is clichéd beyond belief, not that there's much in the way of story to begin with. The big reveal made me groan inwardly, thinking "not another one of THOSE stories". There's little to no bloodshed here, and little in the way of atmosphere or suspense either. The characters are very thinly drawn and none of them are in the least bit likable or interesting. It doesn't help that the cast members have been drawn from WATERLOO ROAD and the like. Looking back, I can't think of a single reason to bother watching this one.

Horror Cinema is not the same as social realism. It deals generally with the unreal, the fantastic; more often than not it eschews naturalism in favour of a more heightened, stylised approach. This does not, however, mean that Horror Cinema lacks socio-political awareness; that it does not often confront serious issue in a serious fashion. But the key word here is "confront".I found myself thinking about this fact as I read the other IMDb reactions to SPLINTERED, and in particular the objections to its allegedly "crass" treatment of the very serious issue of child abuse and its repercussions. Given the fact that SPLINTERED is first and foremost a horror film, not an issue-led social drama, I think the film's approach is entirely responsible and legitimate.SPLINTERED takes the traditional tropes of the teens-in-peril slasher movie and filters them through the dark, Freudian fairy tales of Angela Carter, to powerful effect. It is the story of Sophie, haunted since childhood by dreams of being attacked by some bestial entity. The film begins with this recurring nightmare, then fast-forwards to the present, where Sophie is headed to the countryside to investigate news reports of a sheep-killing wild animal. With her are best friend, Jane, Jane's geeky brother Dean, Jane's boorish boyfriend Sam, and alpha male John, who clearly has designs on Sophie. The film establishes quickly and efficiently that Sophie is a troubled young woman, isolated even among her friends, who regard her obsession with the Unexplained as a self-dramatising affectation, rather than a method of coping with her own night terrors. This particular case has taken an unusually strong hold on Sophie's imagination and has even begun to affect the shape of her nightmares, as a second waking dream makes startlingly clear. Her subconscious is screaming at her - if she can solve this mystery, then she will finally be able to confront her own.Sophie, then, is established as the dream-driven questing heroine of Fairytale, whose journey, though fraught with grave risks will ultimately be one of personal enlightenment. But this is a particularly grim fairy tale. Sophie's dream offers her a vision, an intimation of her own future, of the terrors and losses she will face. Her enlightenment will not come cheap, and it may not be something she wants to accept.The friends establish a camp in the woods, and the various tensions in the group start to surface. All of these relate in some way to Sophie. Significantly much of the tension is romantic or sexual in nature, or expresses itself in such terms. Sam resents Sophie's continued hold over Jane, who still refers to Sophie as her "soul-mate", usually a term reserved for a romantic partner. Shy Dean has a hopeless crush on his sister's friend. John thinks he has more chance of success with her, but only if she'll abandon her obsession with the Unknown. Both John and in particular Sam become increasingly hostile to Sophie, deriding her as "a virgin" whose obsession is actually a means of evading emotional and sexual contact. They do not realise just how right they are.The tensions drive Sophie away from the others, though John follows, thinking to "comfort" her. Here, in the heart of the woods, they discover the Seminary.And at this point, Sophie's nightmares begin to take on all-too-physical form. John is attacked and killed by something bestial. Sophie is knocked unconscious, and awakes to find herself trapped in a cell-like room, very like the one in her dreams. Her captor is the wretched, barely coherent Gavin. Initially, he seems a threat: the ogre in the castle, the Beast to Sophie's Beauty. He is clearly besotted with her, but he is equally clearly disturbed, and possibly dangerous. He talks of "protecting" Sophie, suggesting that there is something else in the Seminary that will harm her. The situation has unsettling echoes for Sophie. And little by little the dreams that haunt her start to coalesce into something else as long-repressed memories struggle to surface.Escaping from her cell, Sophie discovers that Gavin really is trying to protect her - from Vincent, his insane, utterly feral brother. She uncovers the two brothers' story: a horrible tale of systematic abuse that has left Gavin a half-insane emotional wreck, and has reduced Vincent to little more than a wild animal. And now Vincent is loose, a ravening id-creature, filled with unfocused rage and bottomless hunger, destroying everything and everyone in his path.Sophie flees, with Vincent in pursuit, bringing violent death to those around her. Finally, she finds herself back in the woods, alone, all of her friends dead and gone, her nightmare finally coming true. And at that moment, everything she has been repressing erupts to the surface. She sees the real beast, the one who has haunted her and hunted her since childhood: the father who abused her. She understands what she has held buried in her subconscious for so long., and she lashes out, fights back for the first time in her life, annihilating Vincent; utterly feral herself in that moment, as she howls out in rage and pain the terrible truth she must suddenly confront: "I'm not a virgin, I'M NOT A VIRGIN!" It's a devastating moment. Confrontational, certainly, deeply upsetting, yes, but by no means crass or exploitative, because it is grounded so carefully in emotional reality. There is no such thing as closure. The truth is often painful, and catharsis is always violent. It may lead to release, to a cure for one's ills, or it may prove utterly destructive. As the film abandons a bloodied and battered Sophie to her fate, traumatised both by what has happened to her, and what she has discovered about herself as a result, we are left with little hope that she faces a happy future. She has finally confronted the truth about her life. Now she must live with it.

Saw this at the Grimm Up North! festival in Manchester, here are my thoughts...Splintered sets its focus on Sophie (Holly Weston), a troubled young girl haunted by the abuse she suffered as a child and harbouring a deep fascination with the unexplained. In the hope of satiating her obsession with the latter, our heroine instigates a trip to the Welsh countryside with four friends, aimed at tracking down the legendary Beast of Bodmin. It seems the mythical creature – often thought to be a large wildcat or fox – has caught the public's attention once more thanks to a spate of attacks on livestock and one local farmer. It is an opportunity Sophie has decided is not to be missed and, armed with a video camera and a case of beer, the group head off into the woods. However, they soon uncover much more than they bargained for, with the female lead falling foul of a mysterious madman who locks her away in an apparent attempt to protect her from some unnamed terror.The movie opens well with a great score and slick credit sequence, setting up a glossy tone filled with moments of gloomy shadows and chilling blue hues. From the first scene, in which we get a look at Sophie's childhood, it's clear this is a girl who is as damaged by the nightmares of her real life as she is the demons that fill her dreams while she sleeps. The Scooby gang we're introduced to shortly after are established quickly and, if I'm being honest, it wasn't too difficult to pick out which ones I would like to see on the wrong end of a meat hook later. Sam (Sacha Dhawan) plays the douchebag boyfriend of Sophie's limp, wet best mate Jane (Sadie Pickering). Elsewhere, the job of fancying our (extremely fancyable) lead falls to the rather blunt instrument that is John (Sol Heras) and the sensitive and sheepish Dean (Jonathan Readwin).One could argue Sophie is the typically isolated and haunted 'final girl' we've come to expect from the woodland slasher sub-genre, but I'd have to say that would also be grossly unfair. Getting beneath her layers and finding out what makes her tick is perhaps one of Splintered's most engaging elements, as she struggles to cope with the memories of her childhood abuser and the castrating power this has had in overcoming this new terror. This final girl has, initially, got more in common with the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Sally Hardesty; fleeing, screaming and generally being terrified. But it is in her Laurie Strode moments later – when forced to adapt, come up with solutions and face down both her internal and external demons – that she becomes so much more. In one scene the frame of a sliding prison door window id used to play out an escape attempt with a brick to dislodge the bolt that keeping her trapped. This not only sets up a simple intensity as her pursuer hacks away at a ribcage just a few doors away, it also gives Weston the chance to put in one of many great turns – no mean feat in a film focusing so closely on its young lead.Elsewhere, the other teen players are pretty solid, but unfortunately one or two of the interactions between Sam and Jane feel just a little stilted. These are particularly noticeable in moments placed next to the more intense and convincing confrontations between Sophie and Gavin (Stephen Martin Walters) – the deranged and twitchy schizophrenic who serves as her captor. One part psychotic nightmare and two parts damaged man-child, Gavin is wonderfully played as a grimy but multi-dimensional villain who is always just a step away from being revealed as simply misunderstood – much like his new found prisoner. But another special mention must go to Jonathan Readwin as Dean, who starts off as just a blank canvas with a crush, but ends up being one of the most alluring and funny characters on the screen. On a couple of occasions this lazy James Franco-esquire youngster is faced with some particularly ugly moments that are punctuated with a "Fah-kin hell" that gives things a gentle comic lift without being too jarring or silly.I can say in all honesty this is something I would wholeheartedly recommend. Sure, the basic outline of putting a bunch of teens in a forest is a little familiar, but this is only really used to set the psychological aspects of the narrative in motion. Besides, isn't 'terror in the woods' just another sub-genre of horror we've now come to know and love? And isn't criticising Splintered for using this much the same as saying George Romero's latest will be 'just another story where people die, come back to life and than try to eat other people'? The truth is, this flick has got some great ideas, solid performances, tense moments and a final girl that is as alluring to the mind as she is to the eye – and for me this is what counts in a movie of this kind. Splintered is just another example of a thriving UK horror community that continues to serve up antidotes to the dull-as-dishwater Saw films and the mindless remakes that fill our multiplexes for a week at a time over and over again. If you want scares, blood and some actual story, you'll be well served here.