I had originally picked this film to watch because it is rather falsely advertised as a Christmas horror movie. While it does take place—well part of it, anyway—at Christmas, it is really not a horror film but more of a psychological thriller, and I use the word thriller loosely. And it doesn’t involve anyone dressing up like Santa to go out and murder innocent folks.
When Splinter starts, John (Bill Fellows, in a terrific performance) is arriving home with his arms full of Christmas packages. (I will say he is donning a Santa hat but it’s nothing malevolent!). He comes inside and upon stepping into the kitchen, sees his wife and son dead…murdered in cold blood.
Six months later John is a complete recluse. He doesn’t leave his house and in fact doesn’t even open his curtains. The Christmas tree and all the other holiday decorations are still up and out and he is very obviously not able to move on from the tragedy. He continues with a daily routine overshadowed with melancholy and the inability to process his grief.
While we are not sure if John works from home or lost his job or is retired, he doesn’t seem to work. He also struggles with OCD, which we aren’t sure if that is new or if he always had the affliction. He turns the light off and on exactly five times before leaving it on, taps his spoon on his cup four times every time, etc.
John does see a therapist (Jane Archer!), albeit one that is nice enough to come to his house since he won’t go out. She tries to get him to relive the time when his family was killed to try and get past it but he still struggles, as anyone would. He also has a medicine cabinet full of what we can assume are antidepressants and/or anxiety pills. But it is possible John’s other mental health issues are also preventing him from moving on?
When John begins to sense someone is watching him, he begins to wonder if it could be his wife and son….or something more sinister. He sees shadows, receives threatening notes under his front door, and just has an altogether sense of unease.
I was actually pretty impressed with this little indie film. The lead performance of Fellows shows incredible range and impressive depth. To pull off a believable struggle with the complexities of mental health issues is no easy task—but in this role he was able to capture so many emotions from mourning to anger to disbelief to confusion.
Though Splinter is no fast paced thriller, it does have moments of bloody horror that they don’t really hold back from. What it does have in droves is a man’s struggle to deal with the worst possible thing one could go through—and how that trauma affects every part of his life…so much so that he isn’t sure what is real and what is imagined.
I’d recommend this slow burn and will be interested to see what director David Bryant has in store for us going forward.
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