Splice: Gods, monsters and a ‘girl’ called Dren

Part sci-fi, part horror, with a hefty dose of complex character drama thrown in for good measure, writer/director Vincenzo Natali has fashioned a tale for our genetically engineered times with his new film Splice, released in Britain on Friday.
 
The film follows two married geneticists Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrien Brody) who secretly create a human-animal hybrid from a mix of DNA. The resulting creature rapidly develops from an innocent, dependent infant into a rebellious adolescent who is both beautiful yet bizarre.
 
Inevitably the specimen, whom Elsa names Dren ('nerd' spelled backwards), becomes the couple's pseudo daughter, revealing the latent anxieties in the lab partners/lovers' relationship. Clive never wanted children - and at one point he tries to terminate Dren. Elsa, too, has a complex aversion to motherhood, some of which is based in her troubled family background.
 
The film's own DNA is patently derived from earlier cautionary tales from Hollywood - from James Whale's 1931 remake of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (the characters are even named after actors Colin Clive and Elsa Lanchester) to David Cronenberg's 1986 film The Fly via Ridley Scott's Aliens.
 
Authentic performances from the lead actors (including Abigail Chu and Delphine Chanéac who play the CG-enhanced Dren as a child and then adult respectively) and some awe-inspiring visual effects help make Splice a highly entertaining hybrid.
 
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
 
Kim Newman, Empire: "Frankenstein's crime was not loving his monster. This film asks what may happen if a mad scientist loves the creation; the creature shyly adores the lab-coats who have bred her, but is still capable of jealous anger. There are as many heartfelt, emotional scenes as acute horror moments." (4/5 stars)
 
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: "Natali hasn't reinvented the horror genre but... he has done the next best thing with an intelligent movie that, in between its small boos and an occasional hair-raising jolt, explores chewy issues like bioethics, abortion, corporate-sponsored science, commitment problems between lovers and even Freudian-worthy family dynamics."
 
Nigel Floyd, Time Out: "It is fascinating to see the arrogant human scientists revealed as monsters, even as the ‘monstrous' Dren reveals her complex, vulnerable humanity. Sadly, the intellectual sparks that do fly burn brightly but only briefly." (3/5 stars)
 
Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times: "I wish Dren's persona had been more fully developed... The film, alas, stays resolutely concerned with human problems. [It's] disappointing that the movie introduces such an extraordinary living being and focuses mostly on those around her. All the same, it's well done, and intriguing." (3/5 stars) ·