Splice (2009): ***

Genetic engineers Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) have successfully created a pair of worm-like hybrid creatures, Fred and Ginger, capable of producing a protein for medicinal use. Clive and Elsa want to proceed to the next stage, to create a human hybrid creature to cure diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. However, the N.E.R.D company are only focused on making a profit, ordering Elsa and Clive to focus on extracting the protein on a commercial level. Unwilling to abandon their scientific progress, Elsa and Clive decide to go ahead and create their human hybrid in secret. After a nightmarish birth sequence in a womb-like tank, Clive and Elsa have successful created a girl – with a little bit of every animal thrown in – named Dren (Delphine Chanéac). But success comes with a new set of problems, as Dren grows up rapidly with Elsa and Clive unaware of her true capabilities. 

Splice starts off interestingly enough, opening with a fish-eye point-of-view shot from the newly created Fred as he looks up at his creators Clive and Elsa. A sense of uneasiness and pallidness is captured in the early scenes, as Clive and Elsa start to mess around with gene splicing, just to prove that they can do it. It is only when Elsa wants to artificially inseminate an ovum that Clive begins to raise ethical and legal questions about their experiment. But Elsa is determined to proceed with their experiment, even when Clive wants to kill the newly born Dren creature, all for the pursuit of higher knowledge and medical advancement. However, when Dren starts to reach adolescence and shortly after adulthood, Splice almost entirely abandons the scientific questions and goes conspicuously down the Electra path instead. This is the moment that Elsa’s character arc starts to spin on a dime, swinging between a nurturing mother and a jealous, vindictive wife, in order to serve the Electra complex storyline. Questionable moments also start to arise from this plot, as Dren starts to use her newly awoken sexual desires to entice Clive. Director/writer Vincenzo Natali manages to also throw in the Oedipal complex in there for good measure, in a rather disturbing sequence towards the end of the film. It feels like Splice’s message is simply, ‘Don’t become a parent. It will destroy you.’  

The creature effects for Dren are commendable, with her big open eyes set slightly too wide, Dren is both slightly unsettling and alluring. The CGI for the young Dren, Fred and Ginger are not as executed as well, there’s never the sense they are sharing the same space as the actors. Tetsuo Nagata’s cinematography navigates the space deftly and emphasises the washed-out look of the laboratory, with clinical blues and grey along with decaying greens. Sarah Polley gives a strong, sensitive performance as Elsa, in spite of the whiplash her character suffers later on in the film. Adrien Brody delivers a fine performance as Clive, although Brody also has to struggle through some poorly thought out scenes. Delphine Chanéac is compelling as Dren, capturing her fearful inquisitiveness and later her formidable power confidently. 

Splice is a solid sci-fi horror film in its first half, only let down by its psychosexual obsession in the second half.