SPLICE 2.5/4
Warner Bros., Rated R
Less about mix ’n match multi-species cloning, Splice is more a cut-and-paste genre collage of its own that dips into mutant tongue-in-cheek territory just when it seems poised to scare you out of your mind. And weirdly inventive horror director Vincenzo Natali (Cube), doing provocative mad scientist moviemaker here, seems to be out to make the most of a mental hybrid, evoking audience fear and shock amusement simultaneously.
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Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley are Clive and Elsa, biochemist lovebirds stationed at a pharmaceutical lab. Deep into experimental cloning but frustrated by legal statutes against toying with human DNA, they secretly embark on their own discoveries as underground freelancers concocting a new human-animal combo breed.
Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody star in Splice
But the hyperactive female creature (French actress Delphine Chaneac in adulthood) with a mind of her own that emerges from the fetal lab tank is not exactly what the couple had in mind. Due to certain dyslexic tendencies on her part, she comes to be self-named Dren, after learning to read the word “nerd” backwards, even if she’s sometimes referred to more appropriately as The Mistake. Though Clive and Elsa excel as scientists, they also excel as bad parents, combined with the mutant offspring’s out-of-control semi-animal instincts.
As Dren matures from what seems like a cross between a screeching hairless chicken and a two-legged rodent, she gets awfully horny when in the proximity of a baffled Clive, while Elsa, clearly the more obsessive danger junkie of the pair, bonds in perverse ways with The Mistake.
So what we end up with in Splice is seemingly sci-fi on acid: A creative creature compound touching on bald bisexual bestiality, possible self-rape linked to incestuous cloning, involuntary transsexual gender reassignment, a cautionary tale about inter-species unsafe sex and a pair of DNA altered worms named Ginger and Fred, who may actually be George and Fred.
Splice: A fetal attraction, sexy sci-fi reproductive romp, definitely not for the scientifically challenged in the audience.
