Director: Vincenzo Natali
Writers: Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryanti
DVD and Blu-ray release date: November 29 2010
Studio: Optimum Home Entertainment
Number of discs: Available as a solo DVD or Double Play Blu-ray and DVD
Price: From £9.97-£14.97
Running Time: 104 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac, David Hewlett
Mexican visionary Director, Guillermo del Toro, Executive Produces Splice but unfortunately the film merely takes his characteristically dark subject-matter without the slick direction to create a modern day reworking of the Frankenstein story.
“Splicemaster extraodinaires”, scientist couple Clive and Elsa are combining animal DNA to create new creatures. Their first creations Ginger and Fred look like giant live stress balls and are described as “perfect – just perfect,” until they meet each other in public that is. Undergoing hormonal changes Ginger becomes male and caged with Fred, the two attack each other, showering studio audience members with their remains.
Project splice is shut down to isolate a regenerating protein inside the doomed Fred and Ginger – without this discovery the facility will be completely closed and refurbished. Ambitious scientists and keen to further medicine, Elsa and Clive decide to go against orders and splice human and animal DNA. Armed with plenty of warning signs, they continue their secret project, even after Elsa’s hand is maimed trying to manually deliver their creation, they repeatedly think it’s dead and it displays days of growth within a matter of minutes.
Developing like a foetus outside the womb, craving high sucrose food stuffs, with amphibious features, “Dren” soon appears almost human but her mind remains a mystery. Elsa grew up on a farm where her mother went crazy but somehow doesn’t see putting her own DNA into Dren was a bad idea. Chained up, locked away from the world and maimed, through creating Dren and leaving her in such conditions, Elsa has begun a dangerous psychological experiment with her family history of mental health issues.
Dren clearly possesses intelligence as with alphabet letters she complains her existence is “tedious” and craves “outside”. Her animal DNA prevents her from understanding Elsa’s motherly chastisement: “You can’t always get what you want is part of growing up too”, and also makes her threatening to those around.
With a constant soundtrack of underwater gargles, beeping and screeching heard through air vents, Splice is at times creepy and at its most effective, unsettling, as Dren forms her first spoken words “inside you” and enters a stage of sexual awareness. French actress, Delphine Chaneac, is the star of the show as Dren, convincingly combining animal movement and human suprasegmental features to create a being truly worthy of our sympathy in her child-like vulnerability.
Through Splice, Director, Vincenzo Natali, crafts a modern day cautionary tale with an exceedingly dark, depressing and bleak ending, possibly setting up for a sequel in its uncertainty and ambiguity. Elsa repeatedly asks: “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” and through Dren she gets her answer.
***
Extras:
A Director’s Playground: Vicenzo Natali on the Set of Splice featurette
