Splice

Splice was a great movie held back by an incredibly flawed and cliched ending. The acting was great, the creature effects were cool. and the music was eerily appropriate.

The basic plot is this; two dating scientists, Clive and Elsa (played by Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley respectively)create a male and female version of a new species in the hopes of discovering a universal protein to cure diseases. Due to this new species not being human, they worry about the protein being unusable in hospitals. They then set out, disobeying orders from their superiors, to create a human/animal hybrid. They create Dren, a creature who shows vast intelligence in many fields and ages rapidly. My main complaint with the movie is besides the three stars (Clive/Elsa/Dren) none of the other characters served any real purpose other than a body count for the cliche ending.

The big plus of the plot was the various ethical and religious morals playing off of each other. Does Dren have the same rights as a human? Should she be treated like a human? Is splicing DNA "playing God?" etc.

The acting was very good. The two leads had great chemistry and were likable, which already puts the movie above the majority of the horror movies to come out lately. They both had different ethical standards that played well off of each other. Dren, despite being the "monster" had a lot of personality, and you felt emotions for her. When she is first born, she is treated differently than when she starts developing human features. The other characters, as mentioned above, were very forgettable.

The visuals were pretty amazing. Although Dren starts out as CGI (I don't think you can make a blob with legs with an actor...) her humanoid forms are played by Abigail Chu, for the young Dren, and Delphine Chaneac,for the older Dren. They do use some CGI on her, but it doesn't look fake. She grows wings, has a tail, and only 4 fingers. My favorite part about the visuals was the lack of blood. There were one or two scenes that were extremely gory, but the film didn't rely heavily on them. It was bloody when it needed to be and not when it didn't.

The music was your typical horror fare, but it was enjoyable. It wasn't anything I would buy and listen to, but it worked well.

All in all, I can easily recommend this movie. It's a huge breath of fresh air in a genre full of slasher/gore movies.