Splice

I'm writing about a movie that came out a few years ago!  It was really, really cool.  From what it seemed to me, it got a bum rap and wasn't in theatres too long.  I can't seem to find the trailer that was originally on IMDB, the one they have when you click watch trailer plays it up more as a horror film.  That's too bad--but the trailer I saw split between--or spliced you may say--scenes of "Oh my God, what the hell is that?  It looks like it's about to kill somebody!" and the girl being clearly emotional distressed in an ET-ish fashion--like her holding Dren (the creature) while shouting something like "We need to protect her!" et cetera.  Our joke was wondering whether it was going to be a romantic film or horror movie.
It actually turned out really well.  And... not entirely wrong in either department.  (The creature ends up looking very humanoid, and the guy, Clive, has sex with it.  Clive, bro, if it's not human, don't have sex with it.  Rule of thumb, there.  It actually wasn't that weird because it was being shot from the solar plexuses up--until Dren bends her freaky legs and pulls his shirt off with her gecko-grippy feet.  Ewwweeeekkkk.)

If it started out looking like THAT, A) It's not human.  B) Don't have sex with it.

The film, like I said, doesn't really start becoming a horror movie till the last twenty minutes.  And the conclusion is actually the scariest moment of all.  Anyways, it starts off with your usual scientists trying to create a genetic anomaly blah blah blah.  It lives, of course, and starts as a very nonhuman icky little thing and grows eventually into this big (and apparently sexy) human creature.  It's incredibly intelligent, though.  I'm not the sort of person who looks for metaphors and social commentary or what have you in film.  But this movie is definitely meant to be attempting to raise a child.  That may seem obvious, but it's really, REALLY that.  Like all the little things you can do that will ruin or mess with a kid (like, Dren gets embarrassed when the girl finds her drawings, she has temper tantrums, and so on--) only it's ten times worse because no matter how human it looks at its most mature stage, it is not human. It's partially human, but it cannot be treated as human.  Plus, Dren is reaching sexual maturity.  Anyways, it's to the point where they'd yell at Dren or take something away from her and I'd be like OH GOD SHE IS GOING TO KILL YOU.  Did I mention that she has a freaky stinger tail and can apparently fly?  This is a bad combination.
Anyways, here spoilers appear: Dren starts becoming more and more unstable.  The girl takes a cat away from Dren because it might get Dren sick, but she feels guilty and gives it back.  When it is returned, Dren kills it.  The girl slaps Dren for it, and Dren almost kills her.  Later, again, she has sex with Clive, and as Clive is, uh, coming, you see Dren's tail rise behind him with the spike sticking out, implying that she was going to kill him and eat him afterwards?  Sure, why not.  She definitely would have killed him had they not been walked in on.  Yup, the girlfriend walks in on them!  Clive rushes after her, and the already unstable creature apparently can't handle it and dies.  When they come back they find her shell (apparently) left in a tub of water.
This is what I can't fathom.  Apparently her aggressive tendencies were roused by lifestyle changes and stress being placed on her life, which caused a hormonal change--which made her start changing into a male.  Now, I'm no zoologist.  I don't even know if that's the right term to use.  However, almost all creatures (like 99%) that can change sex do so because there are a lack of partners to mate with.  Clearly Dren is not lacking in sexual partners.  Stress wouldn't affect that, unless if it was stress over not being able to find a mate.  Also, she would have conceivably (ha ha) conceived--later (more spoilers, fun times) the girl is raped by the male Dren and the end of the film shows her with a very large, almost due-sized belly.  If the human body wouldn't eliminate the only partially-human sperm as a disease or what have you (as a human body is wont to) then it doesn't make sense that it wouldn't have any affect on Dren.  It also doesn't seem to make sense that the pregnancy wouldn't mess up her hormones or prevent it from happening or something.  I refuse to accept that she could just fully develop male genitalia and working mechanics in the five or so hours that they were gone. I know that she had started taking on male characteristics for a while and that she ages and changes much faster than a human (almost on a rodent or dog level) but that's a little much.
Anyway, it doesn't become a real horror movie till she has changed into a he.  I actually was a little distracted from the preceding part of the film where you get attached and start liking Dren and so on because I was scared it would change from an intelligent and novel to a cruddy, all-too-familiar horror plot.  I figured it had to happen, I saw absolutely no way Dren would get cutely inducted into society or that it would turn into some sort of ET plot (I would have made a personal pilgrimage to the director's house to punch him if that had been the case).  I was impressed though--although it's got an entirely different film, it was handled well.  It didn't quite fill my "raising a child metaphor", but most children aren't six foot tall human-animal hybrids that can fly and are homicidal maniacs and rapists (also, they can't change gender at will through completely biological means)... Most kids also don't have sex with what should be their father figures...?  Okay, maybe it doesn't quite hold up, but you watch it and get back to me on that.
Anyways, it's kind of hackneyed, but the beast goes on a rampage and then gets killed.  There's actually one trailer that's pretty much just clips from when Dren is first born and clips from those last twenty minutes when Dren is killing everybody.  The horror fans were probably really disappointed... (I'd mention that I'm a huge horror fan and I wasn't, but I watched it expecting it to be pretty much recorded vomit, not an Alien-ish movie.)  Then it ends with the most alarming idea of all: the girl pregnant--you see, when they started the experiment, the girl kind of shrugs off Clive's worries by asking "What's the worst thing that could happen?"  The movie ends with her in the office of their head.  The head tells her that no-one will blame her if she aborts the fetus, and then the camera goes over the girl so you can see her fully and she repeats that question.  Chills, man.  I got the worst chills.  The ending could not have been more perfect.

Oh, and the director has said that he will most likely not be making a sequel.  That's good because, again, I'd have to make a pilgrimage to rough up his face.

So... All in all.... It's the best sci-fi film I've seen--well, since... I don't know.  It seems so different from most other sci-fi movies I've seen.  It's done so well, and it has such a cool concept... It's like if you made a sequel to Michael Crichton's Next and had it star a less scary version of the Alien... No, but it's really, really good.  I wouldn't have written this post if it wasn't.  Seriously, go see it.  It's good, unsettling, and crazy.  Also it makes me feel intelligent for being incredible to recognize a scientific fallacy.  (One that I'd never know without Jurassic Park, speaking of Michael Crichton.)

Oh, and I just want to point out, one, the guy who plays Clive is cute, but not like cute-cute.  Like how Alexander Kapranos is good-looking, but... not really.  He is but he isn't.  I can't explain it.  The other thing I want to point out is what a good actor the girl who plays Dren is.  She is fantastic!  She got being an unhuman humanoid down pat.  Very animalistic.  Watch it and you'll understand.  She's crazy good.


Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics: The World at Large by Modest Mouse
This post's cryptic song lyrics: Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, mail--upgrade it



EDIT: I forgot to mention that the girl has sex with Clive before she's raped by Dren, so there's extra ambiguity because there's a chance that it's Clive's.  They don't let you know how much time has passed between her rape and her at the very end of the movie, though, and there's no scene where she tells Clive that she's pregnant (only a few weeks pass from the point where they have sex to the point where she is raped, so she might not have even been sure), so it could be anything.  Soo... Yeah.  Awesome movie!  Watch it now!  If you like sci-fi.