The Reasonable Reaction To Splice

This image pretty much sums up my reaction to Splice, as described in my review:

"Who doesn't want to be debased every now and again?" - Watching Splice

I wrote previously that I was looking forward to seeing Vincenzo Natali's Splice, but had some significant apprehensions about the film. I really enjoyed Natali's Cube and I'm curious about his upcoming adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer, but the marketing for Splice made me concerned it would take a frustratingly conservative stance on scientific experimentation. Having seen the movie I'm happy to report that those fears were completely unfounded, Splice was not a terrible, anti-science propaganda piece.

Instead it was just an astoundingly stupid and uncomfortable mess of a horror film.

Spoilers ahead.

Splice is ostensibly a sci-fi film, but I'm hesitant to call it that since the scientific aspects of the plot peter out about a third of the way through. The story is about two hot-shot geneticists (Adrien Brody's Clive and Sarah Polley's Elsa) who use a mixture of human and animal DNA to create a new life form they name Dren. Throughout the initial stages of their experiment the relative morality of human cloning is discussed, or at least mentioned in passing. One could argue that Splice effectively represents multiple sides on the issue by having Clive and Elsa debate it amongst themselves and with an evil corporate big-wig. Honestly though, the science and politics just aren't a real focus beyond their immediate roles in the plot. The movie is more about parenthood, if anything, and once Dren is born the focus becomes Clive and Elsa's relationship with it rather than cloning. That and creeping the fuck out of the audience.

Splice pointedly eschews rhyme or reason in a sustained effort to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible. There are numerous bizarre plot points with flimsy justifications at best. For example, Clive lets Dren curiously watch as he and Elsa have terrible, awkward sex. Apparently he's attracted to the creature because it's made using Elsa's DNA, or something? There’s also nothing in the way of character development or consistency. Elsa actually does a complete 180 personality-wise, changing from a strong, independent woman to a possessive crazy-mommy cliché. All of this results in an amorphous narrative in which the filmmakers depict weird, horrible things just to make the audience squirm. Clive decides he doesn't want to murder Dren anymore and sleeps with it instead. Sequences like this are ridiculous and don't make much sense but are extremely uncomfortable to watch, and that seems to be their primary goal.

So much of what happens in Splice is infuriatingly stupid and illogical, but it might actually be funny if the movie didn't take itself so damn seriously most of the time. The atmosphere is generally dour and tense but every now and again there are sudden winks at the camera that underscore how ludicrous the plot actually is. For example, after Clive gets caught having sex with Dren there's a priceless deadpan shot of Elsa running away from her deranged boyfriend. Such moments are clearly meant to amuse, but Splice is so generally insane that these sequences aren't always immediately discernible from ones that are just inherently ridiculous. It becomes hard to tell whether you're laughing with Splice or at it. The movie feels indecisively split between being truly horrific and comically absurd, and the result is a disconcerting viewing experience that invites far too much eye rolling.

Speaking of things that are irritating, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Splice's convoluted and misogynistic gender politics. As I mentioned earlier, Elsa is introduced as a highly-intelligent, well-balanced person who is unapologetic in her resistance to conform to gender stereotypes. But as soon as she sees Dren she becomes an increasingly unhinged control-freak, and the switch is so sudden and all-encompassing that it completely undermines her initial characterization. Splice portrays the maternal instinct like it's an inevitable mental disorder that uniformly overrides personality and logic. No matter how brilliant and ambitious they might be, each and every woman is a baby-making time-bomb just waiting to go off.  

Additionally you may have noticed that I keep referring to Dren as an 'it' instead of identifying the creature's sex. This is because one of the film's major plot points is that cloned animals are apparently prone to sudden gender reversing rebirths (wow). While this premise opens the door for a progressive depiction of fluid gender subjectivity, Splice instead resorts to traditional differentiators in its polarized portrayal(s) of Dren. As a female the creature is seductively demure but vaguely threatening, and looks like it'll kill Clive praying-mantis style at the climax of their intercourse until Elsa interrupts. After its transformation into a male Dren becomes a predictably aggressive monster, killing everything in sight and raping Elsa. Yeesh. Splice's treatment of gender stands as its greatest failure, as the promising concept is wasted on cliché depictions of a male-female binary.

Splice is not a good movie. It's got an interesting concept and is at times amusing, but more often than not it's frustrating and uncomfortable to watch. If you insist on seeing it then don't go in expecting any sort of intelligent thought on gender or scientific advancement. This film is campy horror, and not even good campy horror at that. You're better off seeing Drag Me To Hell. Or Alien. Or Species. Or anything. 


For further evidence check out some great reviews over at The Daily Protagitron or Danny Isn't Here, Mrs. Torrence. 

Splice: Expectation and Apprehension

Splice opened in theatres last Friday and I'm going to see it later today. I first heard about the movie back in January when the /Film.com guys were covering the Sundance film festival. I was immediately intrigued since the movie got great reviews and was essentially billed as a contemporary re-envisioning of Frankenstein, one of my favourite novels. Since then I've been patiently waiting for Splice's release, but in the last few months the marketing push for the film has started to worry me:

The trailer above shows that Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley use human DNA to create a new life form that eventually gets out of control. All that is fine and dandy and sounds like it could make for a solid horror film, but I'm concerned about the angle the film seems to be taking on this type of experiment. The trailer openly discusses contemporary legislation and debate about the use of human DNA, and shows that the scientific protagonists are blazing a trail regardless of whether or not the powers that be allow it. Despite that setup Brody's character appears to be a mouthpiece for the conservative right who tries to kill the new creature and melodramatically calls it "a mistake." When things take a turn for the horrible the trailer seems to vindicate this perspective and broadcast the "moral" to the audience that "science is bad!"

I've mentioned recently that I'm getting really sick of primitivism and conservatism in my mainstream movies. Yes they're popcorn flicks but dammit I want to empathize with the characters and feel that my upper-middle class perspective is represented! I want my popular entertainment to promote a culture of liberalism and open-mindedness, not regressive conservative doctrine. Admittedly a contemporary Frankenstein isn't exactly the best site for progressive politics (modern Prometheus much?), but it's possible for movies to show experiments going horrifically awry without implying that it's intrinsically wrong to explore new scientific territory.

I don't know that Splice berates the use of cloning technologies or experimentation with human DNA, but judging by the trailers it certainly looks that way. I'm still going to see the film because it looks like an interesting cross between Alien and Species, but I'm going in with my guard up. I'll do a follow-up post saying whether or not Splice is more intelligent than it looks, but right now I'm not hopeful. Fingers crossed that I'm wrong.