Splice
My thoughts on this summer's most-anticipated horror movie behind the cut:
I would like to first say this: this is not a horror movie. Horror movies are scary. Terrible, horrible things happen in horror movies. People are killed, or at least injured, in horror movies. In horror movies, your lizard brain takes over, and you fear that what's happening on screen might happen to YOU!
I'm going to say, up-front and out loud, there is a spoiler coming:
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SPOILER
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The body count in this movie is... THREE. Four if you include the creature itself. And all four are dropped in the last five minutes of the movie. And of the three victims, only one is killed on-screen (one is revealed to be dead, and one just disappears and is never seen again).
The MUSIC is scary as hell, and really makes it feel like a horror movie; after it was all over I commented that the soundtrack had been laid into the wrong movie. Unfortunately, what with the whole lot of nothing happening on the screen, you pretty quickly stop being anxious, and instead our audience was frequently chuckling at how silly the whole thing was. It's not a comedy, exactly, and it's not really a drama (the creature is just insanely ridiculous), and it's not really an allegory for anything. I've seen reviews suggesting that it's a tale relating the struggles of parenting, but not that many parents have to deal with children who have poisonous stingers in their five foot long tails. It might be a warning against gene-splicing, but since gene-splicing doesn't produce anything like what's seen in the movie, the warning seems to be against something that only happens in the director's brain, so I'm pretty sure we're safe.
I wish I could recommend it; Polley and Brody are fine actors doing a fine job normally, but here they actually spend the whole movie switching personas. One character will be hostile to the creature, and the other parental, and then after a while they'll switch positions. This transition is not done in a gradual, character development way. It feels more like, "Ding! It's time! Now I'll be the bitchy one! You go cuddle with the freak." And this happened a lot.
And while it's been hyped as a gory horror movie, you can count on one hand the number of scenes that contain any blood at all.
I will say that it's raised a lot of questions, but most of them are along the lines of, "What did we just watch?" and "Was that good?"
I would not venture to suggest how to classify this movie, but I will tell you what it's not. It's not a horror film. It's not an introspective look at the pitfalls and ethics of modern science. It's not a character piece, a monster movie, a gore-fest, or even a thriller.
And it's not good.
I would like to first say this: this is not a horror movie. Horror movies are scary. Terrible, horrible things happen in horror movies. People are killed, or at least injured, in horror movies. In horror movies, your lizard brain takes over, and you fear that what's happening on screen might happen to YOU!
I'm going to say, up-front and out loud, there is a spoiler coming:
***
SPOILER
***
The body count in this movie is... THREE. Four if you include the creature itself. And all four are dropped in the last five minutes of the movie. And of the three victims, only one is killed on-screen (one is revealed to be dead, and one just disappears and is never seen again).
The MUSIC is scary as hell, and really makes it feel like a horror movie; after it was all over I commented that the soundtrack had been laid into the wrong movie. Unfortunately, what with the whole lot of nothing happening on the screen, you pretty quickly stop being anxious, and instead our audience was frequently chuckling at how silly the whole thing was. It's not a comedy, exactly, and it's not really a drama (the creature is just insanely ridiculous), and it's not really an allegory for anything. I've seen reviews suggesting that it's a tale relating the struggles of parenting, but not that many parents have to deal with children who have poisonous stingers in their five foot long tails. It might be a warning against gene-splicing, but since gene-splicing doesn't produce anything like what's seen in the movie, the warning seems to be against something that only happens in the director's brain, so I'm pretty sure we're safe.
I wish I could recommend it; Polley and Brody are fine actors doing a fine job normally, but here they actually spend the whole movie switching personas. One character will be hostile to the creature, and the other parental, and then after a while they'll switch positions. This transition is not done in a gradual, character development way. It feels more like, "Ding! It's time! Now I'll be the bitchy one! You go cuddle with the freak." And this happened a lot.
And while it's been hyped as a gory horror movie, you can count on one hand the number of scenes that contain any blood at all.
I will say that it's raised a lot of questions, but most of them are along the lines of, "What did we just watch?" and "Was that good?"
I would not venture to suggest how to classify this movie, but I will tell you what it's not. It's not a horror film. It's not an introspective look at the pitfalls and ethics of modern science. It's not a character piece, a monster movie, a gore-fest, or even a thriller.
And it's not good.