No, it’s not a Frank Sinatra homage and no, we didn’t really get under someone’s skin. Heck, we didn’t we even mildly annoy someone! We’re talking about splinters. We’ve all had splinters, right? I myself haven’t had one since I was a child—avoiding natural wood vehemently and sticking strictly to cheap laminate or particle board (basically all I can afford with this gig). But going back to my childhood, I can still remember the creepy feeling of a foreign object getting stuck in my flesh. For what if that splinter, that itty bitty piece of wood, traveled into my bloodstream, took over my skeletal system and transformed my body into a flailing, bloodthirsty monster. I was a weird kid. Don’t judge. Because that run-of-the-mill splinter experience is basically what director Toby Wilkins has decided to capitalize on, exacting those primal fears and administering a ton of blood and snapped rib cages!

In light of the release of Splinter in theaters on October 31st, we had a long overdue chat with Wilkins, who happens to be the director of FEARnet’s first original series, Devil’s Trade, and the future director of The Grudge III, starring Shawnee Smith. Read the full interview after the jump. And for more on Wilkins check out Devil’s Trade or read our review of Splinter.

How did you get involved with Splinter?

The script came to me in a slightly different form. It was a script called Tooth and Nail, and we ended up changing the title because of the other Tooth and Nail. The script at that point was a siege movie, and it was much like the films that I like, like Dawn of the Dead or Alien. Movies like that, where it’s sort of a confined space and a small number of characters are dealing with a threat from the outside. I brought to it a new creature, which is what became Splinter.

You’ve said in the past that you and a friend actually came up with the concept for the splinter creature...

Yes. George Heyward and I had been brainstorming ways to bring this creature to the screen for a couple of years. It was just one of those great visual ideas that seem totally horrific as you describe it to yourself.

After dreaming of this creature for so long, how close to your vision was the representation on film?

The creature, once it affects you, it becomes a dead human being or whatever the animal is. The surface of the creature is just a distorted human being or skeleton with splinters on it. The splinters are how it spreads. That was definitely part of the core of the creature from the beginning. The physical shape is different for every infection, the pieces it breaks off or stitches back together. Also, the way the creature moves is all dependent on the particular muscle strain of that creature. If we have the splinter that came out of the deep forest, it has the muscle memory of taking on forest animals, which walk more naturally on all fours and behave in that way. Rather, if it were a splinter from the bottom of the ocean, it’d be more used to taking over a skeleton of a crab or an inside-out version of the creature.

When a character is infected they basically maneuver their skeleton in whatever way necessary to latch on to the next person/animal regardless of whether or not it’s natural for that skeletal system to move that way. How did you accomplish those actions for the film?

We had three people who used different types of movement. We had a national championship gymnast. We had Charles Baker, who is a trained mime and has very controlled and expressive movements. He did a lot of the arm work. Then we had a stunt guy who was brought in to throw himself around. That was sort of all combined to establish various stages and various shots of movement that we needed.

We had a suit that was sort of reversible that would go on in one direction in one scene and then on the opposite direction in another scene. It ends up being a very confusing visual image, because you can’t really tell which way the creature is moving or bending, or which way its arms or legs are supposed to be. As soon as you take the human body out of the context of what we’re normally expecting to see, as far as movement, it confuses the brain completely. What’s up and what’s down? It’s cool and a little bit odd.

Underneath it all it seems to have a big focus on eco-horror, like many films coming out these days (i.e. The Happening, or The Last Winter - interview here). Is it a sign of the times or is it more realistic today to scare people with a looming horror of the environment?

I think in Splinter it’s a mild impact to the movie as a whole. It’s definitely hinted at to give the audience an idea, and if they want to make their own idea of where it came from. I think we’re also running out of places on the planet that are unexplored. Back in the ‘50s, even before, the idea of digging down to the center of the earth or exploring the jungles or whatever was not explored, seemed to be a good source of where things might have come from: King Kong, etc. There’s very little that’s undiscovered. But if you think of a substance like the splinter, that’s sort of always been here and been on the planet, what is it that we’re doing that’s now bringing it to the surface? In the case of Oklahoma, there’s a long history of substantial oil drilling and sort of messing with what’s underground. It lends itself to being the way that it was brought to the surface.

If splinter has always been here and we’ve just brought it to the surface, is it safe to say that splinter will always be here? Say, for a Splinter 2?

I think the great thing about the splinter creature is how versatile it is. I think there’s an underwater version of this creature. There’s a lot of opportunities for new streams or the continuation of this stream. I think there are a lot of awesome scares and stories to be told about this entity. So it would be a real shame to not address those.

Often times the origins of creatures like Splinter are better left unsaid. Is it necessary for you to show us the origin?

I think it’s better left unsaid. But there are traces of this thing in any number of places. We never really find out the origin of the creature in Alien. It’s not something that weighs heavily on my mind when I’m watching movies, and I don’t think audiences need to be explained the answers. Where it comes from, I think is just something that evolved and it would probably be a terrible and boring story.

What’s your biggest fear?

Disease and infection which I think is part of where the Splinter concept came from. The idea of being taken hold of something that you can do nothing about and knowing it will kill you, that to me is much scarier than being killed by a creature instantly. Once it affects you it has nothing to do with your brain, it just takes over your skeleton from the inside, and you can fight against it but there’s nothing you can do to stop it.