Splice

The concoction of essentials from ‘Frankenstein, the Fly and Species’ have helped garneted a new direction once more for the monster genre. The result of ‘Splicing’ DNA from different animals and one human to create new life is only the beginning of the nightmares for its scientist. With the casting of two recognizable stars among a newcomer give us a breath of fresh air as we venture into a genre that has failed to live up to its prominent scares only to be crammed with blood and guts surrounded by one liner discomfited dialogue. Splice is a gasp of fresh air into this current trend of campy vampires and tremendously exasperating gore films.

Having vast influences by ‘The fly and Frankenstein’, Splice plays around with the possibility of where current medical science has reached. Going into a territory that hasn’t exactly been touched upon since ‘Species’, the appealing element that comes from the themes is subtly grazed within this film, having been a while since Hollywood tried to mingle sex with horror.

‘Splice’ likes to be something more than it is, ideas that could formulate great conversational debates for the two scientists sadly unbuckles upon itself with deadpan dialog. It just comes across lazy and insulting for the viewers. To think that ‘Vincenzo Natali’ has asked us to accept these two as genius scientist starts to fail big time. When at the center of their conversations they start saying ‘We could be in trouble for this’, knowing full well we are aware of the risk. They keep reminding us this while skipping out on what could formulate as an interesting debate and end up just wasting time on screen. It’s as if the writers (Vincenzo Natali and Antoinette Terry Bryant) could not truly devise more into their ideas and just gave into the cliché dialogue and that is where the film fails. Having such a fascinating premise to only succumb to crappy dialogue is more insulting on the individuals who are real life scientist, since they are presenting them people who would squabble then do research and evaluate the risk.

Vincenzo Natali has to some extent been missing from the limelight after his 1997 cult-hit ‘Cube’ returns to the realm that made him famous, Horror. He does a fairly decent job at keeping the mood tense throughout the first two acts, but near the end of the second act and into the beginning of the third is where the film starts to collapse on its hind legs. Either something happened doing the production or the actual script decided to turn into mess, with Dren shifting genders and transforming into a full out demon-winged monster that decides to kill of its parents. What is even more insulting or harder to believe is that our nerdy scientists are heroes worthy of putting up a battle to this over-powered monster. This is the moment in horror movies where the film falls on its hind legs and just becomes like the rest, and though it does that. It still has its interesting concept that keeps the story fresh in your mind, at most worth a ‘Rental’.

(Disc Review)

The DVD come in a glossy slip cover with ‘Dren’ on it presenting itself as a monster/horror film at first glance, though as I looked at it again it did seem to resemble the ‘Species’ cover, having both females seem sensual.  The video seems to have a bluish color to it, with fine detail presented throughout the film.  The darkness and black hold up really well with a little bit of grain still in the film. There were no problems with the compression of the film onto disk since usually films tend to suffer when their quality is limited by disk space. The audio is presented in 5.1 which really helps build up the atmosphere the director wished to impose, with the dialogue being clear and the score coming from the rear speakers. Most of the action and effect moments are perfectly channelled through their correct speakers.  ‘Dren’ is really given the proper treatment to make her feel terrifying.

(Extras)

Sadly this is where the disk suffers, while looking at even the Blu-Ray extras; it seems that Warner Brothers decided to cheap out and not include more than one extra feature, even the trailers were missing. Where is the Commentary? It’s become accustom to have one, so why not here? It would have been interesting to hear the director’s approach.

Vincenzo Natali on the set of ‘Splice’ (35 Minutes, SD)

Here we are presented with the typical behind the scene tour with Vincenzo. Skipping out on much of the narration or any information, we just get the shooting of some of the scenes. There is one interesting part where Vincenzo informs us of how he likes to direct and not give into the producers or studio demands, saying how he likes the film to be the way he wants it and just his. This is actually really interesting if we had that commentary with him so we could maybe hear about any disagreements they might have had during the filming of the film.

(Conclusion) 

I personally really enjoyed this film, there aren’t many others like this out there and with the elements of parenthood and DNA cloning covered in this film, we get a taste of what the future may hold for us. Will science be able to progress to such a point? Will we allow it? All these points are clearly up for debate today, the question is should we really play ‘God’? I feel I will enjoy this more as a guilty pleasure film for its not meant to be taken as seriously as it could have been, if it not for its third act. Fitting itself among all the horror movies coming out in either 3D or as a sequel that is not needed, it’s refreshing for a change. Is this worth a rental? Yes it is, but for those looking to buy it, I would advise to wait until it gets the proper treatment, having only one extra is truly disappointing.

Film 3/5

Disk 3.5/5