But the plot did not go in the direction of a scientific exploration. I appreciate that scientific aspect of creating a new life form and all the ramifications that come with it. I understand that in the near future Dren could be a living breathing entity. Dren, who was played by French actress Delphine Chanéac, gorgeous enough to allow us to feel sorry for her and place her in the category of victim and probably not too much of an expense in the film’s casting budget as she speaks not a lick in the entire film.īut honestly I would rather Splice took the route of formulaic horror film, for then I wouldn’t have had such an empty feeling when the ending credits started rolling. The creature itself was fascinating to watch. It was based on a real experiment called the Vacanti mouse. Natali didn’t come up with the story of Dren out of thin air mind you.
The audience waits patiently for a horror movie to begin, but they only get a taste of it at the very end. All sense of science gets thrown out the window. It takes a hard left turn and completely goes down the rabbit hole into disturbia to the point where one cannot take it seriously anymore. The premise of Splice and the intelligent direction in which this film could have gone is so different than it actually went. They fall right into their roles of good parent/bad parent, with Elsa treating Dren in such a puerile fashion, eventually Dren bonds with Clive, but it’s on a level that is quite cringe-worthy to say the least. It turns into an ABC Family Special on shrooms.Įlsa morphs into a cat lady who treats their pets like humans while Clive is the reactionary husband who thinks she’s out of her mind.
Right? But then how will this movie play out? I’ll tell ya. It evolves slowly, unlike the female creature, which they eventually name Dren, whose shows signs of escalated cell growth, so no worries she’ll die soon enough. Of course the experiment works and in an Alien worthy moment, said experiment escapes its confines, thrashes around an enclosed environment playing hide and seek until it woos Elsa into keeping it, with it’s cute bald head, chirpy sounds and Pug-esque-head-cocked-side-ways-glance.įrom this point on you would expect this to turn into a horror film quite quickly. If their project is getting shut down, they want to go out with a bang. Sorry, huge corporation doesn’t want to deal with saving the world from disease so said scientists risk their careers and forgo any ethical reasoning they have and splice another dose (this time with human DNA) into a gestation mass, to see if they can actually create an embryo. However, Clive and Elsa would rather save the world and use their creation to cure diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease or cancer.
Their investors are very happy and now for phase two, utilize the slugs and extract a certain protein, so the investor company can reap esteem and wealth. What led them to this was their initial project, which I shall explain in extreme layman terms, was by creating two organism’s, named Fred and Ginger (which looks like massively overgrown slugs) from splicing DNA and voila, an animal “species” (per se) from scratch. Two ambitious scientist lovers Clive Nicoli (Adrian Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) create a creature. Natali has an extensive background as a storyboard artist, so what else would one expect.Įven if you haven’t seen the movie you know the premise. Through this vision, we experience what it would be like if we were aware of our birth and I give props to director Vincenzo Natali for creating such an interesting point of view. Stuck in a womb, it cannot come out by itself and it is slipping in and out of consciousness. The opening scene plays out visually through the eyes of ‘something’ being born.