SPLIT SECOND (1992) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

split second (1992) movie

Genre              |   Horror Sci-Fi

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   90 minutes

Released         |   1 May 1992 (US)

cast

Rutger Hauer ... Harley Stone
​Kim Cattrall ... Michelle McLaine
Alastair Duncan ... Det. Dick Durkin (as Neil Duncan)
Michael J. Pollard ... The Rat Catcher
Alun Armstrong ... Thrasher
Pete Postlethwaite ... Paulsen
Ian Dury ... Jay Jay
​Steven Hartley ... Foster McLaine

director

​Tony Maylam

writer

​Gary Scott Thompson ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Clive Tickner

music

​Francis Haines
Stephen W. Parsons ... (as Stephen Parsons)

film editor

Dan Rae

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​​5,430,822

Australia                 $​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​​5,430,822

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movie minutiae

​Associate producer and screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson's original 1988 spec script was titled "Pentagram", the story of it took place in Los Angeles, California, it involved ritualistic serial killer who kills five people every five years during the last quarter of century and always leaves pentagram symbol after each kill. This original first version of the script was an action buddy cop horror movie with occult overtones. "Pentagram" got Thompson more jobs before it was finally picked up by the head of Challenge Films, Laura Gregory, and Production Manager Susan Nicoletti, and they got director Tony Maylam involved. All three of them told Thompson to change the script, because the story was too similar to the horror thriller The First Power (1990). Thompson re-wrote the script and re-titled it "Black Tide", and this new version was close to the final movie, it took place in London, England, which was half under water due to global warming. Although Thompson wrote the script with Harrison Ford in mind for the lead role, he was happy when Rutger Hauer was cast, and Hauer really loved the script which is why he wanted to do this movie.

​Originally, Wendy Carlos (who composed music for A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), THE SHINING (1980), and TRON (1982)) was hired to compose the score for this movie, but her score was rejected and a new score was composed by Francis Haines and Stephen W. Parsons. A couple tracks of Carlos' rejected score, ones which were going to be used in the morgue scene, were included on her album "Rediscovering Lost Scores, Volume 2".

Kim Cattrall still has her hairdo from STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991). This indicates that the shooting of this movie happened shortly after the completion of Star Trek VI.

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related movies

ALIEN (1979)

SPLIT SECOND (1992) MOVIE IMAGES

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Posters

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SPLIT SECOND (1992) STORY SYNOPSIS

​In a futuristic, partially submerged London, a burned-out cop investigates a bizarre series of murders that point to a killer who might not be human.

SPLIT SECOND (1992) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 13 June 2020

​​Pop Movee Rating

​The slow-burn appreciation of BLADE RUNNER, released in 1982, and the late acclaim Rutger Hauer received in his role as that film’s Replicant antagonist, Ray Batty, was - surely - the only reason why SPLIT SECOND, a very poor example of a Horror/Sci-Fi hybrid film, managed to find enough financing to scrape its way into existence.

Such was the marginal nature of SPLIT SECOND, that few people could or would be able to recall whether they caught this in a cinema or as a rental from the video store.

SPLIT SECOND was written by Gary Scott Thompson, who, some years after the release of the film, managed to find mainstream writing success in 2001 with THE FAST & THE FURIOUS. The success of that franchise has all but guaranteed Thompson’s name continues to appear every couple of years whenever a FAST franchise film hits cinemas.

Thompson’s premise is actually not a bad concept.

Climate-change affected, water-logged near-future London is the setting for a series of savage murders. The only person who has any clue what’s actually happening is a burnt-out cop whose erratic behaviour leads those around him to question his very sanity.

Unfortunately, SPLIT SECOND falls apart under the direction of Tony Maylam.

Before SPLIT SECOND, released in 1992, Maylam had one feature film credit to his name: a 1981 Horror nasty called THE BURNING. (Maylam co-wrote that film with Harvey Weinstein.) In between 1981 and 1992, Maylam had a number of TV Movie and Documentary credits to his name, but nothing that would catch anyone’s attention. Maylam could be best described  as a meat & potatoes journeyman filmmaker who must have been in the right place at the right time to be hired for SPLIT SECOND.

As it turned out, Maylam wasn’t even able to complete principal photography on the film, leaving the production, due to stress, before the finale had been shot. Fellow British filmmaker Ian Sharp, who was part of the film’s Second Unit, was given the task of staging the finale; shot largely around and on board an abandoned London Subway train car.

To underline the impact of what happened to Maylam on this film, he directed just two more feature films in the sixteen years after SPLIT SECOND. Up until his last credit in 2008, Maylam worked largely as a documentarian focussing on high-end European automotive car company histories.

Maylam’s first problem appears to have been his star, Rutger Hauer.

Hauer never quite manages to work out whether he’s going down the serious, play-it-straight route or throw caution to the wind and just chew the scenery. The result is a wildly varying performance that lacks depth and relies more on the actor’s physical presence than his acting skills. On a couple of occasions Hauer gets it right with both his co-stars, Kim Catrall as Michelle & Alistair Duncan as Dick, but - more often than not - the viewer is left with the impression that Hauer has no idea what he’s doing.

Alistair Duncan is not much better…

Since appearing in SPLIT SECOND, as “Neil Duncan”, the actor persevered for a number of years with limited on-screen roles, but, in 2003, he found his way into Video Game voice performance and has built a very impressive resume of credits.

Unfortunately, as Detective Dick Durkin, Duncan gets swept along in the wash of Hauer’s uncertainty and ends up creating an even bigger caricature than his Dutch counterpart.

Of the leads, only Kim Catrall comes anywhere near a performance that could be considered acceptable, although not even she is immune to some very sloppy scripting and even sloppier editing.

During a set-piece two-thirds of the way through the film, Catrall’s Michelle is staying at Hauer’s Harley Stone’s apartment. The story uses the old “one-two-switcheroo”, tricking the viewer into believing that Catrall’s character is in mortal danger only to have another woman in the apartment complex fall victim to the killer.

Stone and Durkin rush to get to his apartment but find Michelle is safe but the killer is still in the building.

The pair descend to a lower floor, hit their target with everything they’ve got, but have nothing to show for it.

Michelle then appears with a bite mark on her neck, stumbling around, mumbling that she’s been bitten.

Hang on a minute!

Up until this moment, the killer has been relentless in the need to rip the heart from every victim as part of the ritual being performed.

Now, instead of killing Michelle, the killer leaves a bite mark on her neck.

On a film that had a better Director, more disciplined performances and better production value, such contrived writing might go unnoticed. Not the case with SPLIT SECOND. 

To this point, Catrall’s character had been solid and her performance helps to lift the entire film, but, for some reason, she’s turned into a derivative “Damsel in distress” and, for much of the remainder of the film, when she appears, her presence is to their only to serve both Hauer and Duncan trying to do manly, macho things with their characters.

SPLIT SECOND also has some very strange performances from some very good actors in supporting roles. Both Pete Postlethwaite and Alun Armstrong attempt to make something of their roles, but, ultimately, both succumb to Hauer’s seesaw performance.

The presence of Michael J. Pollard is downright bizarre. Billed as “The Rat Catcher”, Pollard is barely in the film long enough for his role to rate beyond a cameo, but he's fourth billing behind Hauer, Catrall & Duncan. Pollard had a long career with a lot of credits and was noted for his portrayal of strange, idiosyncratic characters. In some films, Pollard’s unique performance method did not seem out of place. In SPLIT SECOND, Pollard seems so out-of-place that he looks like he’s performing in a completely different movie.

Other than a roster of inappropriate performances, the other huge problem with SPLIT SECOND is the story’s antagonist.

Like all the majority of the performers in this film, the antagonist doesn’t really know what he/it wants to be.

Ultimately, the antagonist is revealed to be a ten foot tall creature that looks like a pumped-up version of Venom.

Not that you’d know that at the start of the film.

In an early scene, Maylam establishes the character by way of a first-person point-of-view, operating well within direct sight of bystanders as he/it observes Hauer’s Stone in a nightclub.

Give that some thought for a moment.

What is, in the film’s second half, revealed to be the aforementioned ten foot tall creature that looks like Venom, in the film’s opening moments, goes completely unnoticed!

The creature’s reveal invalidates a great deal of what is established throughout the first part of the film.

This is the result of a lot of on-set rewriting and, from multiple sources who worked on the film, a creature design that was finished when principal photography started and the subsequent costume appearing deep into the shoot.

No wonder poor old Tony Maylam suffered a bit of stress.

What is surprising about SPLIT SECOND is how well the film is regarded by the masses on iMDB. Currently, the film rates 6.2/10 from 11,617 users.

How can this be?

SPLIT SECOND is a bad film. Full stop.

It has poor production value. It has terrible acting. Both in front of and behind the camera, with the exception of Kim Catrall, there is nothing to recommend this film.

If you have 90 minutes of your life that you just want to waste, SPLIT SECOND is the perfect stopwatch.

SPLIT SECOND (1992) USEFUL LINKS

Split Second (1992 film) - Wikipedia
​Split Second (1992) - IMDb
​Split Second (1992) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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