There's not much to this evil plot

Set in modest Peru, Ind., and centered around its real-life Peru Amateur Circus, "Little Big Top" isn't funny enough to be considered a comedy (it's actually not funny at all) nor deep enough to have dramatic effect, making the picture's stingy story of Smiles' reluctant return to performing that much more dispensable. It also takes so long for this third-generation clown to stop snarling, boozing and passing out drunk that by the time he starts composing full sentences and rediscovers his bliss it's too late to be engaging. Even a sunnier sequence in which Smiles shows the ropes to a local troupe of ragtag clowns doesn't much captivate.

Let this one pass through town.

-- Gary Goldstein

"Little Big Top." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes. Exclusively at Laemmle's Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-3500.

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You won't even need tweezers

What's so irksome about a wood sliver that painfully lodges in your finger is the notion of something unwanted visibly nesting beneath the surface. It's a jarring image of body penetration, and the quicksilver horror flick "Splinter" uses that nifty idea in imagining a relentless, hungry and spiny mutation of nature that flings itself at human prey, growing itself by taking over from the inside.

Visual-effects-guy-turned-feature-director Toby Wilkins can be commended for wasting little time moving his endangered victims -- two couples, initially thrown together by one's carjacking of the other -- from outdoorsy calm (camping site) to bunker mentality (abandoned gas station mart). But his down-and-dirty, gory survival tale, lovingly steeped in creature-hostage nightmares (think George Romero's zombie films and John Carpenter's "The Thing"), is ironically most frustrating when showcasing its own needlelike raison d'etre.

A fan of flash-edited, orientation-challenged, hand-held camera mayhem, Wilkins unfortunately takes the wrong cue from his title and fragments the movie's attack scenes for maximum energy but minimal logical effect.

Clocking in under 90 minutes, "Splinter" extricates itself quickly from your moviegoing consciousness, but it never totally gets under your skin.

-- Robert Abele

"Splinter." MPAA rating: R for violence/gore and language. Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes. Exclusively at the Mann Chinese 6, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., (323) 464-8111.