Splice (2009)

Ignoring instructions from the pharmaceutical company that funds their research, groundbreaking genetic scientists Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrien Brody) continue with an unorthodox experiment to create a human-animal hybrid, a new life form they dub "Dren" (Delphine Chanéac). When they see their fantastical creation, Clive warns that it should be destroyed, but Elsa refuses -- a decision she'll regret when Dren makes deadly plans of her own.

With a little more care to plot holes and a little more attention to making the human characters seem less stupid, Splice could have been a great horror film. While it falls short of that mark, Vincenzo Natalis film about genetic splicing and an experiment gone terribly wrong still has a lot to enjoy. Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody give good performances and manage to make their scientists-in-love couple credible and believable characters despite some serious flaws in both characters judgment and the story has enough to say in order to let us float past the many logical flaws. It is the work of Delphine Chanéac that truly elevates the film though, as she makes the human-hybrid creature Dren a sympathetic, disturbing and wholly mesmerizing character all in one. Natali brings his flair for visuals to the film and provides some fun, gory and unsettling moments amidst all the intellectual posturing. While the film loses steam in the final act and becomes more exploitation than sci-fi horror, the set-ups that the film takes to get there are nifty and the end result is an enjoyable and fairly intelligent horror film. In a market flooded with amped-up yet dumbed-down remakes and joyless drivel when it comes to horror, this is a breath of fresh air despite its flaws.

As everyone else has stated, this isn't a horror film like its trailer makes it out to be. It's character based science fiction, and it's average, at best. The two human characters, played by Brody and Polley, are rather annoying scientists who splice together human DNA with a bunch of other creatures to create Dren, who mostly looks like a chicken crossed with a human, and then these characters all have to somehow survive without being found out, for pretty much no reason at all. I found myself very annoyed by the Brody and Polley character interactions. Brody whines the whole time about how what they're doing is wrong, but is spineless to actually stop Polley, even when things start getting out of control. And Polley's character switches between polar opposite viewpoints, both of which are grating. This movie had an interesting premise and a solid cast, but it mostly flounders through a boring script and uninteresting characters.


***/*****

3/5 Stars