This Unsung, Nastly Little Creature Feature Tops the Streaming Charts: “Very unnerving”
I love a good creature feature more than most. After this year’s Fantastic Fest, you already know Johannes Roberts’ Primate is my most-anticipated movie of 2026. In our review, we wrote, “When you see this movie with a crowd primed for popcorn horror, none of that matters. It’s just fun, and audiences will have a blast with it when it hits theaters in early 2026.” A good creature features hits like few things do, and whether they’re of the B-movie variety or Idris-Elba-Punching-Lions type, I’m almost guaranteed to love it.
What’s most exciting about creature features is that they are essentially the domain of indie filmmakers. Sure, there’s the occasional Crawl, though often, it’s guerrilla filmmakers with big dreams conjuring up the nastiest, gnarliest creature features you can think of (consider The Void). One of the best films of this century has just landed on HBO Max. It’s vicious, gory, and thrilling, and it’s remarkably the most-watched horror movie on the platform. Learn more about Splinter below:
Per HBO Max: A couple finds themselves trapped with an escaped convict in a remote gas station by a deadly parasite that turns its victims into hosts.
Splinter was a blind rental of mine way back when it released. The DVD art looked sick, so I snagged it for the weekend from my local video store (well, my Mom did… I was a kid). Toby Wilkins’ chiller is on constant rotation now, and it’s one of several movies I’m thrilled to introduce new horror fans to, largely because it’s been certifiably underrated since 2008. Wilkins only helmed one other movie (The Grudge 3), and it’s a shame. I’d love to see what he might be up to.
In our contemporaneous review of Splinter, we wrote, “Splinter’s got all the elements that make for a great midnight movie, something horror fans will be telling one another about for weeks, maybe months, afterward. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s smart enough to not try and pretend otherwise, embracing its inherent limitations and using them to its full advantage.” There’s a solid cast, great scares, and one of the most distinct movie monsters ever. Audiences have been loving it, so check out some choice social media reactions below:
What do you think? Any plans to check out Splinter on HBO Max? What other creature features never quite got their due? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
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