Split Second *** (1992, Rutger Hauer, Kim Cattrall, Neil Duncan, Michael J Pollard, Alun Armstrong, Pete Postlethwaite, Ian Drury) – Classic Movie Review 11,974

Split Second poster.

Director Tony Maylam’s 1992 British/ US science fiction action horror thriller film Split Second stars Rutger Hauer, Kim Cattrall, Neil Duncan, Michael J Pollard, Alun Armstrong, Pete Postlethwaite, and Ian Drury.

Rutger Hauer stars as a burnt-out cynical veteran police homicide detective Harley Stone hunting down the serial killer who killed his partner several years ago. Neil Duncan plays rookie police officer Dick Durkin, who is assigned to partner with Harley.

Hauer and Duncan play the cops engagingly in this futuristic London horror thriller set in 2008 when the city is flooded, rat-infested and terrorised by a Thing that tears out victims’ hearts.

There is not a new idea in sight – rowing buddy cops, pop video visuals, a welter of sleaze and violence, and lo and behold (when we finally do) an alien straight out of Alien. Despite that setback, and a dodgy script (by Gary Scott Thompson) where the unintentionally funny lines get bigger laughs than the deliberately amusing ones, this is still a fairly arresting experience, thanks in part to Hauer’s charisma and Duncan’s hard work. It does keep going and deliver the genre thrills, with the help of good stunts, photography (by Clive Tickner) and effects (by Alan Whibley).

The movie was filmed in eight weeks, between 17 June 1991 and 9 August 1991.

Timing is everything. The film was released on 1 May 1992, grossing $5.4 million on a budget of $7 million, underperforming because it was released during the Los Angeles riots.

Wendy Carlos’s score was replaced with a new soundtrack by Francis Haines and Stephen W Parsons.

There were so many protracted discussions about how the main villain should look that Stephen Norrington had only three weeks to design the creature.

Screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson wrote the original script as Pentagram in 1988, but the script was changed several times both before and during production. Changes were sought over concerns that the script might be thought too similar to the 1990 horror thriller The First Power. The ending was changed repeatedly. Hauer asked Thompson to re-write the script to make it more physical and to focus more on his character’s psychic link with the creature. Maylam left the film through stress so Ian Sharp (credited as co-director) and others finished it.

Even afterwards, they were still tinkering and some scenes were deleted, hence the relatively short running time of 90 minutes. Two of the deleted scenes have turned up on VHS and Blu-ray.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,974

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