A riddle: What has chicken legs, fish gills, eagle’s wings, a deadly razor tail, and supple girl-breasts? This movie. And it’s all in the body of one part-human thingamabob in “Splice.”
If you go
“Splice”
4 out of 5 stars
Stars: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Rated R for horror violence, language and some sexuality
Running time: 105 minutes
Junk science was never so twisted, ominous … and fun. Yes, I hate myself for this. But who can resist squirm-inducing and bizarrely eroticized sci-fi horror? Especially when it comes layered with undercurrent themes of nerd supremacy, yuppie comeuppance, family dysfunction and technological progress run amok. I haven’t giggled so much — when I wasn’t necessarily supposed to — since seeing 1995’s breeder alien with the killer tongue in “Species.” Kevin Bacon’s invisible molester “Hollow Man” (2000) had a malicious quality to it but is also of the same ilk. All three of these creepy/facetious genre flicks succeed thanks to fantasy premises rich with real-world subtext, skilled actors classing up campy material, and the irresistible draw of perversion.
In today’s example, director-co-writer Vincenzo Natali engineers scares with wit.
His two brilliant biochemists, romantically involved, have discovered a way to merge DNA from various species to create new critters, intended for agricultural or pharmaceutical purposes. But against company wishes, Clive (Adrien Brody) and especially Elsa (Sarah Polley) can’t resist experimenting secretly with the final frontier of their work: They add some human DNA into the mix.
Eh, voila! There emerges a fast-growing hybrid of female child and animal that its “parents” call Dren (played by young Abigail Chu and then nubile Delphine Chaneac with some cool makeup and special effects).
Have you ever heard the expression “it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature”?
Well, the geeky professionals are ambitious to have it all — career superachievement and eventually a family. What they don’t expect is the mutant from hell.
Warning: This nervy, hard R-rated piece turns dark in the last act. Even though the context is obviously make-believe, there are scenes of rape, incest (sort of), and semi-bestiality.
But Brody and Polley look like they actually could be scientists, which can’t be said about most overly perfected, vapid Hollywood stars. And the underused Polley enhances her character with a complicated inner life, another unusual quality for movies like this.
A recent news item also makes the thrills in “Splice” more than just cheap. The journal Science reported, just two weeks ago, that researchers accomplished a biological landmark. They artificially synthesized a bacterium’s cell, which then actually divided and replicated.
One word: sequel.
