Splice (Vincenzo Natali, 2010)

[Yakushima]

Saw this tonight, what a terrific film!
This is science fiction at its best, populated with humane and ambiguous characters and creatures that have a lot of character. I can't recommend this enough.
If this does well (fingers crossed), Natali will hopefully get a chance to do his adaptations of "Neuromancer" and Ballard's "High Rise".

[brendanjc]

I had a less enthusiastic response, though I'd definitely agree this is less a flat-out horror film than the trailers would suggest and instead a decent science-fiction one for most of its run-time. It has an (unintentionally) hilarious sex scene, so there's always that to recommend it.

[colinr0380]

I'm certainly interested in seeing this - I haven't had a chance to see Nothing yet but I was extremely impressed by both Cube and Cypher. Even the short film Elevated was claustrophobic gory fun with an ironic twist!

I'm also not too worried about the Species style resonances given off by this new film as Cypher felt at the time as if it was a rather late entry in the 'vitural world' cycle of the late 90s and early 2000s and still managed to create an engaging story from seemingly worn out tropes (it also helped that Cypher eventually ends up feeling more related to Total Recall than to The Matrix, but with more sympathetic characters than either of those films contained).

[Galen Young]

Have seen it twice already and love it more with each viewing. I don't think any of the humor is "unintentional" but rather there by design and is pitch perfect for the story and genre at that. Was a little surprised to find Natali closely following the narrative beats of Cronenberg's The Fly, pretty high marks to shoot for but he clinches it. There is a lot of damn funny stuff going on here -- it's the best Cronenberg film not made by Cronenberg and I mean that as a compliment! Here's hoping word of mouth will get people in to see it.

[J Adams]

The humour has GOT to be intentional. This MUST be seen with a theater audience. Loved all the background "that shit is fucked up!" commentary from the crowd.

The cut to the conference room after the press conference disaster is the best jump cut since 2001 (the Kubrick film, not the year).

A+

[Roger Ryan]

Finally saw this one last night and found it to be mildly disappointing after reading some good reviews (notably the New York Times). SPLICE certainly has the Cronenberg vibe to it along with some big helpings of ALIEN, KING KONG, ERASERHEAD and E.T. thrown in. What the film doesn't have is a consistent character arc for the two leads. Ultimately, this is a film about a couple dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and learning to raise a child before either is ready to do so (that's where some of the ERASERHEAD ideas come into play), but midway through the motivations mysteriously change for both of the leads which send the film into fairly outrageous territory. As intriguing as the latter scenes may be, the film becomes unbalanced and never recovers. This is a shame, since this unfortunate shift occurs almost immediately after the best scene in the film...

Spoiler

When Clive inadvertently saves Dren's life by attempting to drown her

Director Natali seems to lose interest in pacing towards the film's finale, choosing some uninteresting shock moments instead of building suspense. Overall, I'm grateful SPLICE is more than standard horror exercise, but I felt it could have been much stronger.

[Tuco]

I've got to agree with Mr. Ryan on this. I fully expected to be creeped out based on the NYT review, but ewwwwwww...I don't think I'll ever be able to watch Adrien Brody again without getting a little sick to my stomach.

[HistoryProf]

Director Natali seems to lose interest in pacing towards the film's finale, choosing some uninteresting shock moments instead of building suspense. Overall, I'm grateful SPLICE is more than standard horror exercise, but I felt it could have been much stronger.

I agree on the last point...and I can't help but wonder if Sarah Polley was the problem. I've always liked her, but she just never felt right to me in this role. I can't quite put my finger on it, but she was just, i don't know...off.

I loved the unpredictability of it all though...and they certainly weren't afraid to take it into bizarreville. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it certainly benefits from a theater audience. Still well worth seeing.