Splice Review by Dark ugh

Hello all,
I am pleased to welcome a good friend from NewZeland to the blog,known only as"Dark ugh"He is a fantastic artist so please go visit his blog and show your support,For this review he will be reviewing"Splice".
Many thanks Mr Dark!
Click here to visit his great blog----->http://darkugh.blogspot.com/

 

Splice 2009



Director Vincenzo Natali


Starring Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley and Delphine Chanéac

The first thing to remember in life (or is that just film?) is that science is bad, or at least evil when you don't do it properly. In the same way that sex, camping & lakes don't go together, if you try to mix the wrong things up, you will end up in trouble. For proof, see previous films like "The Fly", "Re-animator", "Frankenstein" or even "Weird Science" - well maybe not weird science.
So in this case, Splice doesn't completely break new ground. Mix Human DNA with any other you can find, chuck it into an artificial womb & wait for the mixture to rise. Add to the mix a suspect family past and you have recipe bound to give you problems (can't say food poisoning, that's just going too far with the analogy)
Splice is a pretty straight forward film focused around a scientist couple blessed with too much zeal and bugger all morality. They bend (snap?) the rules in a rush to beat a funding lock down and end up creating a sentient being well beyond any ones expectations.
The creature they make is really the highlight of the film. At first cute then later nasty, it handily grows from sweet tadpole to malevolent adult very quickly. Things get more disturbing when it starts to develop a sexy side, providing the film with some uncomfortable moments - in the "Is this sexy or is this horrible?' kind of way.

The two leads work well together but I found their flip-flop decision making a bit frustrating, but I guess it was necessary to carry the plot along.
Splice definitely reminded me of early Croneburg, especially Shivers or maybe Rabid. The early hybrid slug creatures could easily be one of his. The fact that the film was filmed in Canada seemed to be quite fitting.

To summarise, is this an essential Sci-Creature-B-Horror? No. It isn't as unusual as the directors first and quite superb film 'Cube' (1997). Its no gore fest, but for a good evenings entertainment in the form of a well paced, interesting story with some good effects and a scary creature its worth the watch.

3 stars (out of 5)