Splice

The Spliced ROSSMAN

Before I went to the theater last Saturday, I made sure that I didn't know much about the sci-fi/horror film known as Splice that I was going to see. Yeah, I had heard about it (meaning I knew it existed), and I was aware that online film critics (meaning not REAL film critics [and yes I include myself in that blanket statement]) were giving themselves sloppy blowjobs and clapping their hands like seals over how "genre changing" and awesome the whole thing was, but I knew nada about its plot, characters, setting, etc. That's usually the best way to go into a film — blind — but I usually have a very difficult time making this happen as I can't help looking up spoilers for movies whenever I can. It's a disease.

Anyway, long story made short: Splice was fun and I liked it a lot. Longer version: Splice is pretty fucked up and will make you ponder it for days after seeing it. Shortest version that'll maybe make you puke: I want to bone adult Dren.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though, and should probably take a step back and explain the basic plot to you, along with who/what Dren is. Clive and Elsa are two romantically involved geneticists who have fun playing God (and fucking like monkeys) in their lab. They spend their days splicing together the genetic codes of various creatures in order to create new enzymes for livestock feed or somesuch scientific gobbledygook, but soon Elsa decides that she wants to be a new age Dr. Frankenstein (pronounced "frahnk-en-shteen") and merge some human DNA into the next hybrid monster they stitch together. She wants to do this despite their corporate backers telling the two of them "NO... EN OH, NO," and warning the two of them that the world just isn't ready for anything as non-profitable as a human/worm/snake/horse chimera thingy that they couldn't even ethically experiment on (if anybody found out about it).

So being the manipulative bitch of the twosome, Elsa (like offering an apple to her man given to her by a talking snake) convinces Clive that her plan is flawless and perfect, and so they create the disturbing new life form that Elsa names Dren ("Nerd" spelled backwards because geeky nerds think that shit is cool). Dren starts out as this weird little lizard/kangaroo-looking thingy without any arms, but with hand/talons for feet and a strange vestigial tail. Within a couple of short weeks though she starts developing and growing like a weed and soon looks like a bald human child with wide-set eyes (and those strange legs and that tail that she never grows out of), but she's able to understand English (though not physically able to speak it) and spell things like a high school student (no, not an American high school student — I just told you she could spell things). And Elsa, despite never wanting kids of her own because mommy used to torture her and treat her like slime while growing up (because she deserved it) grows to love Dren as if she were her own baby... Until Dren starts to like Clive more than "mommy."

Soon Dren is just too big to hide in the lab anymore, so they move her into the old abandoned barn behind the house where Elsa grew up and left all her parent issues. By this time Dren is in her teenage years (well, she looks to be a teenager despite being only a few months old), and even though she looks kind of freaky and otherworldly (what with her bald head, bird-like legs, strange eyes, and venomous tail), she really turned me on. No, I am not into beastiality (nor am I a furry lover.... Christ, kill me if that ever happens), but the hot French actress who plays the non-speaking Dren — despite all the creature effects and absolutely perfect CGI that turns her into a monster — lets her beauty really shine through in an eerie way that I've never seen before. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so either, seeing as Clive soon finds that despite slacking off at work (to disastrous results to both his financial and publishable future), he can't keep his eyes off the hairless freak in the old barn behind the rusty farm house he and Elsa now live in.

Lots of shit gets launched into the fan at this point (not the least of which are giant, mutant, man-made, sightless caterpillars going psycho and brutally bloody on each other in front of a lot of stockholders, and siblings finding out about Dren and getting their panties in a bunch because they can't have one too), and it all leads to a whole lot of sex and some pretty horrible confrontations in the middle of the wilderness on one cold winter night. Bad things, George. Bad things.

Despite me making it sound like a dumb and dorky B movie, Splice really is quite unique. Yeah, it's another "monster made in a lab" flick, but it still felt fresh. Adrien Brody as Clive helped this thing breathe, sure, but I have to give almost all of the credit to actress Delphine Chaneac, the woman behind the Dren. You just feel so goddamn sorry for Dren and her lot in life, and it's not because of any hokey or cheezy moments of showing her caged up, or being treated like a baby by a deranged mother-figure (Dren doesn't know anything different to compare her life to, so she's relatively happy), but it's all because of the small bits of emotion (glee, sorrow, frustration, etc.) that Chaneac brings to the table that show that Dren is more human than human. She has these moments of pure happiness in her life (like learning to dance with Clive) that are quickly shattered for no reason (in her eyes), and end up utterly destroying her ego and the viewer's soul. Nobody's perfect in this movie, but Dren is the most sympathetic by far. I swear, I dare you to not want to uterus-punch Elsa when she... Jesus, just see the movie.

One last thing I want to touch upon before wrapping this up is the way this movie was advertised. After seeing it and telling my friends that I watched it they all scoffed at me. "Why'd you go see that shitty slasher flick?" they asked. "It looks like a terrible mutant Jason or Freddy wannabe movie."

I had no idea what the hell they were talking about (seeing as Splice is as far removed from the genre of "monster-slasher" flick as Schindler's List is to "buddy cop" movies), until I then YouTubed the commercials for it. My GOD, whoever put those mini trailers together should be shot. In the groin. With a shotgun filled with pellets and rock salt. Then have lemon juice poured all over the wound. Then forced to watch Jersey Shore reruns for a month in a Clockwork Orange chair. Did the marketing genius who made those commercials even SEE the film? They made this quite brilliant little movie look like a cheap made-for-Sci-Fi Channel flick (starring Dean Cain and some people from TV 20 years ago). No wonder this thing bombed at the box office. Fuck you, marketing department!

So that's it-- Oh, and did I mention there's a Dren sex scene in it? Hot monster love, full of thrusting, moaning, and rolling... How can you say no to that?!

So in the end, what did I think of Splice? It was good, it was thought provoking (much more so than the heavy-handed Jurassic Park when it comes to scientists asking if they COULD do something, and never stopping to question if they SHOULD), and it was sexy. I give it Three Out of Three Mutant Thumbs Up. Watch it.

The Splicer DR. DAVE

Holy smokes. I knew that my entire life of gene splicing and reorganizing was leading up to something, I just didn't know that I'd get my most perfect inspiration from a movie with that guy who was in that movie with that thing. Way back when.

So anyway, last Saturday night the Rossman came pounding on my lab door — interrupting my "monkey and me" time — with a single picture in his hands of this bald, pale lady with strange animal-like legs, and a tail. A sexy, sexy tail.

He shoved a large sack of cash into my hands, told me "The dye pack's been neutralized, and all that cash is yours if you can make me my own personal Dren!" Then he hauled out of there when the sirens got close, saying he'd be back in 3 days to pick her up.

I got started right away. I borrowed some left over DNA from those cheerleaders that disappeared from that local high school a while ago, found that albino snake I'd been missing, got a scorpion, and gathered something that I found in a rat trap in the back of one of my less-used rooms in my underground complex. Then I put their genes all in a blender and spun them all together. It was spectacular!

The final result was less so though. It turned out to be just another case of the journey being more fun than the destination unfortunately. Did you ever see that movie with Cher in it? No, this isn't an insult to the goddess known as Cher, but I'm trying to get you to think about that unfortunate youth with that face that was all messed up. That kid in that Mask movie. Yes, he was about 1,000Xs prettier than my final creation that night, mixed with the final form of Mr. John Carpenter's The Thing. I would go further into it, but it most assuredly would cause you to lose your lunch. From two weeks ago.

Needless to say I was most reticent to give up that bag of money the Rossman gave me, so instead I kidnapped some gorgeous French woman who didn't speak English, shaved her head and surgically attached a tail to her just in time before the Rossman showed up for his delicate human/creature hybrid. He apparently didn't catch that she wasn't just speaking gibberish, but French, or he didn't care. Two days later when I asked about her and how she was doing he got a little nervous and answered that I must not have spliced her genetic code too well, because she melted into a pile of protoplasmic goo. I wanted to keep the money, so I didn't ask any further question. Lord knows I've accidentally expired quite a few women with stitched on appendages in my day. Who am I to judge?

I did eventually see the movie, Splice, what with all those scientists' fancy labs and equipment, like forceps, and clean rooms, and rubber gloves... And despite my envy I liked it. Maybe with all that cash I got I will dedicate myself to actually creating my own Dren from scratch. It may be time consuming, and tedious, and difficult.... Oh forget it, I'll just treat the Skipper to a night at the nudie bar.

The AMY of ANGRY

So according to this movie, Splice, all women are either psychotic cunts with mommy issues, or beat-down daddy's girls who kill cats... Lovely. Oh, they can be smart, sure, but apparently the smarter a female is the more bonkers she becomes later on in life. (Notes from the Rossman: Aaaaaaaaaa-men!)

This movie was just creepy, disturbing, and stupid. A man wrote it, I just know it. How do I know (beyond what I've already said)? Well, that Clive man fucks a hot and sexy creature in a moment of pure lust and messed up abandon, and the psycho girlfriend gets raped horribly by a demonic male genetically created creature in a moment of pure terror and madness... Just like we're supposed to think she deserves. Oh, and the woman can save the man in the end, but she just lets him die like a dog just after he saved her pathetic life. Because it's her time of the month or something. Fuck you, male Hollywood!

Hated it. It sucked. Terrible movie.