a SIFF 2010 review
Familiar Splice a Genetic Scare
Even though their corporate bosses tell them not to and focus on the more profitable aspects of their genetic splicing techniques, Dr. Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and his partner Dr. Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) secretly go ahead and create a new species of creature using human DNA as part of their experimental cocktail. Naming the new child-like animal Dren (Delphine Chanéac), their experiment grows at a rate far exceeding their expectations, the young creature learning exponentially at a percentage paralleling her evolution.
Delphine Chanéac and Sarah Polley in Splice © Warner Bros
Anyone familiar with the history of scientifically based horror will tell you going in not everything works out as planned in director Vincenzo Natali’s (Cube) latest independently produced effort Splice. From Frankenstein to The Fly (either version) to Deep Blue Sea to just about every silly monster movie that makes the weekend rounds on the Syfy Channel the template for this kind of flick hasn’t exactly changed over the decades. Things will not go as planned. People will die. Science will prove to be no match for the carnal and vicious will of Mother Nature.
And that’s exactly how it is here as well. Bust just because Natali and fellow co-writers Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor (They Wait) screenplay doesn’t go anyplace unsurprising or new doesn’t mean it didn’t hold my interest. The team mine wells that directors like David Lynch and David Cronenberg have turned to more than a few times and do it in a way that pays deliciously nasty homage to the both of them, their film having an unsettling sexual sheen to it that only adds to the suspense.
It also helps considerably that the filmmakers have actors of the caliber of Brody and Polley taking center stage. Even when things got a bit too absurd for my tastes (most of these moments revolving around Dr. Kast’s almost comically appalling childhood) I was still somewhat willing to go with the majority of them thanks to the sincerity and the power of the performances. They invest themselves heart and soul into all of this old fashioned B-movie silliness, Polley in particular relishing every one of her character’s narcissistic tendencies to the point I almost started to wonder if she somewhat shared the woman’s growing insanity.
But the real standout here is relative French newcomer Chanéac. She’s just awesome as the creature Dren, her whole performance a series of body, head and eye movements mixed with a series of ever changing chirps and cheeps that both startles and fascinates. The more she did the more I discovered I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, the actress imbuing her delicate but dangerous creature with a sinisterly seductive mystery that’s superb.
Not that I can completely embrace all the festival adoration this title has managed to generate ever since its January debut back at Sundance. There truly are no surprises here, not a single one, and I had pretty much every twist and turn pegged right from the very beginning. Yes there is a pretty decent mid-movie switcheroo concerning a pair of gelatinously blobby creatures nicknamed Fred and Ginger but even that inspired bit of carnage adds too much in the way of foreshadowing. As well made as the film is it doesn’t do anything new or different, that one fact keeping me from embracing the finished product as fully as much as some of the individual bits and pieces might otherwise have convinced me to.
Still, for all its genre familiarity it’s nice to see an original horror effort get a major Summer release from a Hollywood studio like Warner Bros. It’s not a remake and it isn’t populated with a single tween star. While the film doesn’t stray a lot from its genre roots thanks to its take no prisoners attitude and largely because of Brody, Polley and especially Chanéac it’s always easy to watch. More than that, for fans of this sort of thing Splice is smoothly enjoyable, and while I’d rather they’d tinkered with the narrative DNA a bit more I still had enough of a bloody good time I’d be curious to see what Natali’s got up his sleeve next.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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