Splice

(2010)

Dir: Vincenzo Natali

There is a particular scene that lingers in the mind long after seeing Vincenzo Natali’s Splice. It is, to sound rather clichéd, Cronenbergian, which is no small praise. The only problem is, this dark, surreal, stomach-churning scene doesn’t quite fit with the rest.

This isn’t to say that Splice isn’t dark, or even disturbing. The story of scientist lovebirds Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley’s creation of a strange human-animal hybrid and the inevitable catastrophic outcome is littered with references to other greats of the Science-Fiction genre, from Cronenberg’s The Fly to Ridley Scott’s Alien. With much of its action taking place in a dark, dingy laboratory, Splice is most aesthetically similar to The Fly, although the actual creature that is created resembles, in various stages, H.R. Giger’s wonderful ‘facehugger’ and Pan, as portrayed by Doug Jones in Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. It is just never as sinister as it wants to be.

The gradual humanisation of ‘Dren’, as the scientists christen her, is extremely effective, transitioning from model into the heavily made-up Delphine Chanéac seamlessly. Chanéac is the most arresting thing about Natali’s semi-horror. She goes from adorable to terrifying with a simple bob of her head.

But Splice could be more. It feels like a film that should be darker. It is already naturally gloomy due to the serious subject matter of cloning, but it seems as though Natali is holding back. The scene mentioned at the beginning of this review is the one moment when he expresses himself, but, as a result, feels out of sync, especially in the case of Adrien Brody’s character.

Splice is still entertaining in its tributes to the enduring appeal of the dark, twisted Sc-Fi horrors of the 70s and 80s, but it never deals with the ethics as they did, and is left ultimately as an above average modern Hollywood Sc-Fi thriller.

*** ¼ / *****

“Be afraid, be sort of afraid.”