Synopsis
From director Toby Wilkins, hand-picked by ‘Evil Dead’ director Sam Raimi to helm Horror shorts to promote The Grudge 2 (‘Tales From the Grudge’ - www.tobywilkins.com/play_grudge.html), his directing talent speaks for itself. With Wilkins’ design and effects credits including Spiderman 3, The Lord of the Rings and Grindhouse, SPLINTER is about to bring to life one of cinema’s most gruesome creations…
There is something in the woods so hideous, whose predatory method is so horrifying, that it will strike a new kind of fear into the very core of all who see it… Like ‘Alien’, ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Thing’ before it, SPLINTER will redefine the boundaries of terror.
A deserted highway, a gas station with no customers – it’s just a normal day out here for Blake, the lone pump attendant. But something catches his eye that breaks the monotony. Out in the road, something is moving. A raccoon? But its body is twisted beyond recognition, and its coat is quivering with thick black thorns. It should be dead – but instead, it’s coming towards him, fast…
Meanwhile, not too far away, two young lovers, Seth and Polly, have hopes for a romantic anniversary escape, camping in the great outdoors. Their plans take a turn for the worse when they’re held at gunpoint, carjacked and kidnapped by an escaped convict, Dennis, and his drug-addled girlfriend Shay. As they hit the road together, they have to stop at the nearest gas station to refuel…
To their horror, they discover the mutilated body of Blake, the pump attendant, punctured all over with thick, black, urchin-like spikes. Before their eyes, his corpse begins to move – jerkily, unnaturally, horrifically, its joints all out of place, its limbs bent back on themselves, and each tortured, deformed step echoing with the sound of shattering bones and tearing muscles…
Blake has become the latest victim of an unrelenting, unthinking, organic life force that exists only to feed its ever accelerating desire for the blood that nourishes it. It moves through the bodies of its victims like a parasitic virus, assuming their shape, while consuming their insides. And, without thought, without conscience and without pity, its hunger for more blood won’t let anything get in its way.
When Shay is brutally attacked and ‘infested’, Dennis, Polly and Seth find themselves holed up inside the gas station. They soon come to the horrific realization that whatever this thing is, it can’t be fought, and it can’t be killed. For now, hidden at the back of the gas station, they are safe. That is, until Dennis notices a thick black splinter embedded in his finger…