No wonder some scientists get annoyed with movies. Its very rare that scientists invent anything that gets out of hand and starts killing people, but in films they just cant help themselves. Its as if the moment you put on a lab coat youre suddenly imbued with a desire to play God and see how close you can get to the complete destruction of the planet, while affecting a devil may care attitude. However even though that Splices scientific credentials are a little off (despite tipping its hat a lot to ideas of ethics and boundaries), its still a very entertaining romp, which is actually more interesting for its bizarre psychosexual tensions that what it has to say about science.
Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play Clive and Elsa, renowned as being at the top of their field and hailed for having successfully managed to splice together the genes of different animals to create a completely new hybrid species (scientists, stop frothing. Yes, the way its presented in the movie is faintly ridiculous, but this is sci-fi, so go with it). Now they want to go further by using human DNA in their experiments, but the pharmaceutical company funding their work forbids it.
Undaunted, the duo set to work in secret, creating the human-animal hybrid Dren, who starts growing and learning at an accelerated rate, while constantly evolving to become amphibious and in possession of a tale with a toxic sting. As you may have realised, this makes her more than a little dangerous, but instead of just letting her go on the rampage, as you might expect, the film descends into a more bizarre and perverse world of strange and fluid sexuality. This is a film that includes scenes that if looked at in certain ways, could be considered bestiality, bisexuality, incest, paedophilia and/or rape (in fact somebody raping themselves). Perhaps most perverse is that all this is all wrapped up in shell that initially presents the scientists and Dren almost like a family unit, so that when it all goes pear-shaped as Dren begins to change and evolve, its even more disturbing than it would have been otherwise.
Wisely, while many films would have just had Brody and Polley as being blinded by the possibilities of their work, before seeing the light when they realise what theyve wrought, they remain far more human characters, making decisions that are often less than noble, a little bit selfish, foolhardy and sometime unlikable. Oddly though, rather than alienating the audience, this makes them all the more interesting, so that while it initially seems this is going to be all about how the frontier of science is like playing with matches, it changes into something stranger and more human.
Dren may be a movie monster, but shes out of the Alien or The Fly book, where the monster is almost a manifestation of the sexual id. This time the sex is more open than it was in Alien, and whereas in that movie it was more about aggressive male sexuality, here it plays more into the tensions amongst and between the sexes, with Dren both male and female, and not exactly expressing the best of either.
While all this is extremely interesting and gives the film an almost Cronenbergian, unsettling vibe that most modern horror/sci-fi lack, its not without its flaws. While Sarah Polley is excellent, Adrien Brody once more shows that perhaps The Pianist was an aberration. His intensity suggests that he thinks hes a lot better than he actually is, as he often comes across as being slightly unsure of what hes doing. Its also difficult to escape the feel that much of the movie is a tad derivative, even if its doing some interesting things with the ideas its borrowed.
The script could have done with some tightening too, particularly in regards to Dren, because with her shifting desires, actions and motivations, the film threatens to lose sight of her, turning her into a plot device after lots of good work setting her up. This never quite happens, but it threatens to. Equally, after the strangeness and daring of whats gone before, the conclusion feels rather generic. In fact its something youd have expected from a rather more run of more run of the mill film.
Nevertheless, despite a few flaws, Splice is undoubtedly superior sci-fi horror. In fact even if you stripped out the unsettling sexuality, itd be worth watching for Dren, whos a truly wonderful creation of physical and CG effects, underpinned by a wonderfully androgynous, seductive yet menacing performance by Delphine Chaneac. In fact the script problems surrounding her that are mentioned above, often seem to stem from the fact shes such a strong creation that it’s sometimes difficult to control her.
Overall Verdict: Superior sci-fi horror, which may be a bit derivative, but goes to some wonderfully strange and unsettling psychosexual places, and offer a brilliant piece of character design in Dren.
Reviewer: Phil Caine