Splice [DVD]

My general dislike for Adrien Brody (who I often find difficult to watch in any role, really) asides, I really enjoyed the first half or so of this film - I won't give anything away as it's nice to see it unfold, but the (very current) ideas and themes explored, the style of the backdrop and dark tones make this all look like a really slick very well produced and directed creature-feature genetics horror, but then it feels like it starts to lose its way a little bit and become a bit muddled with what the purpose or message of the film was and which direction it wants to go in. This allowed my interest to wane unfortunately which in turn opened up enough of a crack into reality for me to realise I was watching Brody and remember how unwatchable I find him, at which point it all went a bit pear shaped.It's a film with great potential and is worth watching for the creature/horror side of it but I can't help but feel it could have been much better with better direction in the second half.

This starts of decently - the performances and the creature effects are decent, although the science is rather poor, and the plot fairly obvious and derivative ("We're a couple of maverick scientists, with almost no time left before they our funding, so let's break protocol and violate every ethical rule in the book - what could possibly go wrong?!").Unfortunately the last third is terrible - several major plot points that are completely and utterly unbelievable and destroy any suspension of disbelief you'd nurtured up until that stage. Plus they're just so deeply unpleasant and unnecessary. At this point the movie descends into "ick" horror territory and these supposedly sensible scientists start running around screaming like headless chickens.If they'd managed to maintain what they were doing in the first 2/3 of the movie until the end, it would have been a watchable, 3 star movie. But the ending ruins everything that comes before.

A full in-depth review of Splice will hopefully be available soon on my own film and TV review site (link in my Amazon profile!)Looking back, it's hard to believe that I'd gone almost a decade without ever hearing of splice. I mean it has one of my favourite directors, Guillermo Del Toro, attached as an executive producer and given the things the film gets into, how I had never heard of this? It was only thanks to a screening of it in university that I ever saw this... and I spent a significant amount of time just processing what I had seen. It's been a while since my first viewing, and having got my head around it... I don't think it's a good film. It's an OK film, with pretty serious issues that weigh it down... but it's a fascinating one nonetheless. I can't talk much about the actual plot without spoiling it, but I will warn you that if you do choose to watch this, be prepared to suspend your disbelief big time and prepare to encounter some massive gaps in logic during the first act. One thing's for certain: from my point of view as a Film Studies student, I could talk forever about Splice. There is so much in here: abjection, anxieties of genetic mutation, and enough to apply so much Freudian psychology that you could choke a Basking Shark with it. I could write tons about Splice in essays, and in fact I have done. Like I say, I can't call it a good film, and I mostly bought the DVD to capture some screenshots for that essay. Still it's an admirable film, with a whole bunch of content packed in. If you're feeling adventurous, maybe give it a try...

rather tasteless, annoying, bi-polar characters. showcases rather well everything wrong with humanity. goes downhill with every scene from the middle. bizarre and unenjoyable ending (this movie should be rated an 18 as there is a rather graphic rape scene at the end as well as sex and nudity, bound up Dren) however the scene when the two creatures burst out of their cage leaving the people in the front row covered in blood was hilarious, and when clive is caught. just so predictable. however it is a very uncomfortable and awkward movie, left thinking you wished you never clicked on it. watch The Shape of Water instead.

Starts as an interesting idea but rapidly runs out of steam spoiling a good start. The creature is well realised and well played making it an engaging and sympathetic character. This is used well at first to create good psychological tension as the relationship between the boyfriend/ girlfriend pair of scientists and their child/creation develops and becomes more complicated. However all this is thrown away in the last third of the film which resorts to lazy shock horror which is very cliched and poorly done thus completely undermining the effect achieved up to that point. Slow start, promising middle and poorly thought out ending which spoils the whole film reducing it to a routine average horror movie like so many others. Not eally worth 90 mins of your life.