VICIOUS infected critters and gun-toting rednecks are just the beginning of the horror in “Splinter.” There is also a pedantic grad student.
Locked in a gas station with his girlfriend and a yokel who has just kidnapped the two of them on your prototypical deserted road, the grad student issues exposition about the mysterious thing that has managed to spread a plague of splinter-
like quills everywhere. They infect whatever they touch and turn them into ravenous zombies.
The usual ravenous-zombie stuff ensues, with much cowering and screaming and gruesome makeup effects. There have been worse horror flicks, but although this one offers a few scares, it doesn’t have a lot of imagination.
Running time: 82 minutes. Rated R (profanity, graphic violence). At the Village East, 189 Second Ave.