Splice (2009)
Missing Some Genes
Zombos Says: Good (but should have been better)
The Frankenstein brothers had it easier back in the day: just rob a few graves, swap a brain or two, dodge the villagers, and they were good to go. For Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrien Brody), two scientists splicing genetic material for the pharmaceutical company funding them it’s harder: they need to quickly come up with a profitable benefit from their work for the company’s board of directors while avoiding using human DNA in the process to help. There’s all that messy ethical, moral, legal, and congressional-folk just itching to light those political-torches falderol if they give into temptation and cut that corner by doing so. But temptation is the bread and butter of horror, of course, and giving in to it is where Splice begins.
The movie cuts some corners also. It’s not quite a horror movie, though we do have a metamorphic monster; it’s not quite a character study, though there are glimpses into Elsa’s troubled family life; and it’s not quite a panoply for all those ethical, philosophical, and legal issues waiting to pounce when manipulations, creations, and terminations of human substance are involved; though fragments of this triplet codon are to be found here. This leaves Splice‘s horror and dramatic genes only partially joined, spread apart by inadequate dialog (thankfully devoid of too much scientific jargon) and a story that neither emphasizes its philosophical dilemmas or craftily avoids them, nor terrorizes us with their details.
…