Splice, directed by Vincenzo Natali, is deliciously twisted. It reaches strange, insane and unpredictable places that can only elicit an unexpected, sadistic joy worth basking in. If you’re a sucker for Cronenberg and Romero, then this is right in your wheel house.
Splice isn’t quite the generic horror film it’s being sold as. The first two-thirds are staged, written and played as a morality play, with leads Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley talking out their conflicts with their “experiment.” It’s an obvious allegory for parenting and parenting issues. It’s a genre film that has something to say and says it in the right way: with subtlety. It delves into themes we’ve seen before such as the typical “what makes us human” question and it’s done well. It’s never overly obvious with what it’s trying to say.
Clive (Brody) and Elsa (Polley) are scientists looking ahead into the future. They’re both a couple and are looking to make names for themselves. They’re interested concerns splicing human and animal DNA together to make a new organism.
Unsurprisingly, this “Frankenstein” idea is a bit frowned upon by the higher ups, as it was in, well, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Being the aspiring young hipsters that they are, they move forward in secret. They create something that’s never been seen before. Her name is Dren, a marvelous creature designed with the right amount of touches of CG. Elsa immediately takes a liking to her and wants to raise her like her own. Clive feels a bit different at first but his thoughts on their creation changes towards the end, quite drastically to the say the least.
Again, not your standard horror movie. Even in the last thirty minutes are difficult to bill this as “horror.” It’s definitely on the shocking side of things and doesn’t hold back on the blood, but it’s never played for pure scares either. No cheap jump scenes. There is one simple fact about Splice that everyone should know: it’s either going to work for you or it isn’t. It all comes down to the tricky tone that some will find handled incredibly well or will find the experience itself to be completely laughable.
There’s definitely laughs to be had though. For the most part, the film is a bit tongue-and-cheek at times. It’s incredibly self-aware of how crazy it is. All of this will surely come off as silly for some, but any fan of this type of material will embrace the hilarious dark sense of humor it has. It plays plenty of scenes for laughs and when a moment isn’t intended for chuckles it’s that uncomfortable laughter that comes when you’re seeing something you don’t know how to quite react to.
That’s what is so incredibly refreshing about Natali’s wonderful experiment. You never quite know where it’s going and when it gets there it ends up taking what you expected even further. Unpredictability is rare and Natali delivers. If you haven’t heard Natali’s name before, he delivered the quite good cult followed Cube and the lesser known (but better than most DTV releases) Cypher.
He also made one of the best shorts in Paris, je t’aime (it was the wonderfully gothic vampire one with Elijah Wood). In other words, he’s shown promise in his past work and has delivered on his potential here. He’s breaking into a realm that doesn’t usually feature incredibly limited budgets and contain well-renowned and excellent actors – his previous films suffered from as much.
This is more than a typical B-movie. It’s got two excellent strong performances, is beautifully shot and is lovably strange. It’ll most likely be divisive due to its tone and some of the more stranger aspects, but any surreal and crazy movie nerd will cherish the Splice experience. S