New Review: Splinterheads

Brant Sersen’s newest film after the successful “Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story” is another amusing tale with a main character once again having an interesting hobby: this time geocaching.

Starring Thomas Middleditch as Justin Frost and Rachael Taylor as Galaxy, Splinterheads is about Frost as a slacker whose life is turned upside down when a traveling carnival rolls in to town for the summer, bringing with it a crew of carnival workers, who call themselves ‘splinterheads’ and earn a living by hustling an endless stream of townies out of their hard-earned cash.

Frost begins to fall for Galaxy, the geo-cacher and street-smart tough girl with a badass boyfriend Reggie. Also complicating the plot are some quirky characters including Frost’s grandfather as the oldest man in the world, his best friend Wayne (played by Jason Rogel).

Leah Thompson and Dean Winters also star.

Galaxy is an interesting character that while starting off by scamming Frost ends up for whatever reason falling for the goofy and awkward guy. They spend time together while she is geocaching, the hobby helping to shape her character and reveal a side to her that humanizes her as more than a splinterhead.

If the word geocaching means nothing to you, it is sort of a treasure hunt using a GPS – people leave and take little treasures. I don’t really get it – but have yet to try it so who knows. Galaxy seems pretty into it and a a fairly interesting scene helps explain the hobby. On the main geocaching site, there are bulletin boards that explain vaguely about different caches where the treasures are hidden.

A highlight of the film are side characters The Amazing Steve (Jason Mantzoukas) and Wyoming (Lennon Parham). Expect amazing things for both of these actors as their talent truly steals the show at numerous points in the film.

Already the two are at work with future projects. Parham will star this fall in CBS’ new show “Boldly Going Nowhere.” Mantzoukas is teaming up with Rob Corddry (star of Blackballed) to write a new comedy sci-fi “The Donor,” which is also produced by Jon Stewart.

The film will play in Oxford one time only on Monday, June 22 at 7 p.m. at The Lyric as part of the Oxford Film festival summer series. Darren Goldberg, producer, will join for a Q&A. Goldberg previously produced two other film fest movies, “The Cake Eaters” and “Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story.”