Splice ( 2010 )

Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, & Delphene Chaneac

Directed By Vincenzo Natali

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1017460/



I'm not sure if "Splice" is a great monster movie, but it features a great movie monster.

The film revolves around an unsettling chimera, named "Dren" by her creators. Dren is a lethal mix of lovely human girl and vicious stinging predator DNA -- the result of a reckless secret experiment by two bioengineers (Sarah Polley, Adrien Brody) who barely seem to understand their own motivations.

Dren is delicately played by Delphine Chanéac, with some incredible digital and prosthetic help; when the lighting's just so, she looks a little like Björk with fawn legs. Co-writer/director Vincenzo Natali ("Cube") uses the creature beautifully, flipping Dren from wounded girl to wild animal in a heartbeat. Like the best movie monsters, Dren is both sad and scary, and Natali slowly reveals her full genetic feature set to create some genuine surprises -- even as he takes "Splice" to horrible, uncomfortably dark psychosexual places that wouldn't be out of place in a David Cronenberg flick.

All that said, I wish the humans in the movie were stronger, or at least made a bit more sense.

Polley and Brody are good actors, but their characters aren't particularly compelling on the page. They're famous scientists who don't seem to engage in much actual science, their conversations are a bit drab, and despite their superstar status at the big-pharma company that employs them, they're able to hide a screeching, unholy side-project from their colleagues by -- get this -- turning up the stereo and moving into unused rooms.

(Also, and I know this is a function of the film's low budget, it would be nice if the big-pharma company seemed to employ more than about six people.)

The human factor keeps "Splice" from achieving true poetic-horror greatness; to my thinking, Natali shoots for a thematic richness he doesn't quite realize. But horror fans should still seek the film out for Dren -- one of the most striking abominations to hit the big screen in a while. I'll take something this ambitious over another PG-13 '80s-horror remake any day of the week.

( * * * )

Mr. What?