Review: Splice

Last night I went to see a movie that had really intrigued me ever since I caught the previews three weeks ago,

Splice

It's a film starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, two successful bio-engineers who have created the world's first animal hybrids by splicing the DNA with lots of different animals.


Their first creations look like undulating masses of pink crap, but apparently are useful for deriving medical anti-bodies or something to help make livestock and humans healthier.

The company that sponsors their work wants to completely shift the focus of Adiren and Sarah's research to increase profits, and in a rebellious fit, they create human/animal hybrid.

Sure enough, it works, they hatch a screwed up looking critter, and as you've probably already guessed, it turns from being a cute little science project to nightmarish monster.

All I can really say about Splice, is that it's really uncomfortable to watch. I don't mean uncomfortable like Saw or Hostel is to watch, I mean it's unsettling. I squirmed in my seat and at one point covered my eyes because shit started getting weird.
After the movie was over I felt like I had been violated. I still feel a little violated actually, and now that post-rape sadness I hear all about it setting in. If you can imagine how you'd feel after watching a grown man shave all his body hair off in the shower, clutching a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand, while crying and singing "All by Myself" by Eric Carmen you'll start to get an idea of how weirded out desecrated you're going to feel after watching Splice.

Not only that, but the movie was kind of boring at some parts. There was a solid twenty minutes of this film where I thought about getting up and leaving. The film really went nowhere fast for a good portion.

And there's a few scenes obviously meant to be tragic, or have you jump, and I just laughed. With a slightly different music score and couple reshoots, you could have just named this movie,

"Better off Ted: The Movie" because that's quite literally what it seemed like.

On a sidenote, if you haven't seen Better off Ted yet, go watch it. It's hilarious. Too bad it got canceled like all good shows do these days.

Overall I award Splice:

4/10

The Positives: The special effects were pretty good, Dren (the human/animal splice) is really well done. Later in the movie a heavily make-upped actress takes over for the CG version and her costuming was excellent.
I liked Adrien Brody too, who played the role of a hapless scientist dragged into an experiment he wants no part of perfectly. Sarah Polley? Didn't care for her. She deserved what happens to her at the end of the film.

The Cons: It gave me the jibblies. Seriously. If you need an example of how creepy it was, think the rape scene in Deliverance times ten.

Also, the story is really dragged out. The entire movie could been condensed down to a forty minute episode of The Outer Limits, a really good episode of the Outer Limits too actually. It's not that the plot wasn't interesting, there just wasn't enough of it to keep you anywhere near the edge of your seat.

I wouldn't recommend Splice to everyone. Pretty much the only people I can think of that would get serious enjoyment out of this movie are fetishists and soft-core horror film lovers. Those people are usually the one and the same actually.

Kid Cudi - Day 'n' Night