Splice (2009) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Vincenzo Natali
STARRING: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac
RATED: R/Region: A/1:85/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Warner Brothers
Splice (2009) is the cinematic equivalent of someone saying, “This is a really bad idea,” and then the movie nodding thoughtfully and doing it anyway… louder. Marketed as a classy sci-fi thriller, it quickly reveals itself to be a cautionary tale about genetic engineering, boundary issues, and why some lab doors should be welded shut and forgotten.
Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play brilliant scientists who are extremely good at DNA splicing and spectacularly bad at literally everything else, including ethics, common sense, and basic human decision-making. The film pretends it’s about playing God, but it’s really about watching two professionals ignore every red flag the universe throws at them because “the data is interesting.”
Then there’s Dren. Oh, Dren. The creature design is legitimately impressive and unsettling, which only makes it more impressive how quickly the movie swerves from creepy science fiction into full-blown what on Earth am I watching? territory. Every time you think the film has reached its peak level of discomfort, it calmly says, “No, actually, it gets worse,” and proves it.
Director Vincenzo Natali (Cube) clearly wants this to be a smart, provocative genre film, and to be fair, parts of it almost get there. The problem is that Splice is so committed to being shocking that it forgets to be coherent, tasteful, or remotely self-aware. By the time the third act hits, the movie has abandoned science, morality, and possibly the laws of nature in favor of pure, jaw-dropping audacity.
And yet… that’s kind of why people still talk about it. Splice is messy, uncomfortable, and wildly inappropriate in ways that feel almost intentional. It’s not a good movie so much as a cinematic dare—one that stares directly at the audience and asks, “You’re still watching, right?”
Love it, hate it, or immediately text your friends “DO NOT WATCH THIS,” Splice remains a deeply strange artifact of late-2000s prestige horror—proof that sometimes the most horrifying experiment isn’t the monster, but the script.
Extras
- A Director’s Playground
