Here’s my quick review of the new sci-fi / horror Splice from this month’s jmag. It was the second Adrien Brody movie I’d seen in consecutive days, but thank god here he doesn’t use his hilarious ‘yeah, I once saw an Clint Eastwood movie, so what?’ voice from Predators…
SPLICE
Directed by: Vincenzo Natali
Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chanéac
Country: Canada
Many think Frankenstein was the first science fiction story. It tapped into something so powerful we’re still seeing new twists on the story today. This year it’s Splice, from the director of the 1997 lo-fi sci-fi Cube.
Sarah Polley (always excellent) and Adrien Brody (usually terrible, though pretty okay here) play a pair of gene-splicing scientists. Bored with using animal DNA, they introduce something human into the mix and soon have a gooey ‘daughter’ born with a stinger-tipped tail – and she’s growing fast.
Splice’s weighty ethical issues let it take itself pretty seriously for a movie that’s regularly so ridiculous. I mean, there are two pink lumps of Cronenbergian flesh licking each other with monster tongues in the first five minutes, and later there’s a sex scene that’ll keep fetish websites loaded with screengrabs.
But the best thing about Splice’s science-gone-wrong is how it asks the same question that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein asked back in 1818. What’s worse: children or parents? Splice says there’s enough horror in both.
Other reviews this month: Greenberg and The Ghost Writer in cinemas; Youth In Revolt, Cop Out, and Party Down: Season One on DVD.
Issue #42 on sale now.