Splice

I saw this last night...Sheer lunacy. For the first half, not that it's great or anything, it at least seemed to fall in line with some of its superior antecedents: Rosemary's Baby, The Fly, Eraserhead, etc. Then it went all Ed Wood. Best line: "I think we can safely say this is a bit of a setback." (Huge laughs throughout the theatre; I think it was meant to be funny, but I'm not 100% sure.) Line I really, really wish had been in the film (if you've seen it, you'll know when): "Wait, Elsa...Let me explain!"

am i the only one that thought the Splicey girl looked like Britney Spears post-headshave, with a tail

but yea overall I liked it but it was uneven. and I know precisely which scene you're talking about, which made me giggle a bit.

http://www.mattfind.com/12345673215-3-2-3_img/movie/h/p/u/splice_2009_1280x721_458899.jpg

http://nosh.fr/img/britney-spears.jpg

Pretty darn close. And they both dance.

this movie was just so fucking ridiculous

all spoilers but this was more entertaining 2 me than i think the actual movie would have been

http://makesomelove.livejournal.com/227249.html

Yeah, I was kind of *impressed* that this movie managed to fit in pedophilia/incest/bestiality/rape...all in one bunch. Impressed and really disgusted. And it happened like three times in the movie. Also kind of fucked up that the lady kept the fucking rape/incest/manbeast baby? Even if it was For Science.

I was equally offended by it playing loosey-goosey with the idea of parthenogenosis, which apparently means switching sex at the drop of a hat: but I'm a pedant ESPecially re: biology.

I did like the one scene where the flesh-slug things fought in the lucite cage, it was the one moment where it actually presented whatever kind of sci-fi terror I was hoping for. I also liked this scene because it meant our lord & lady lead were getting their comeuppance. They were both very fucked up, mean, unlikeable people, so it says something about this movie that my #1 moment was them sort of getting their consequences for being so fucking irresponsible.

I saw this movie like two months ago or more and I am apparently still very angry about it!

well I think the movie intended us to feel that way about those characters, because I sure as hell did. female was more interested in personal profit and easily went from nuturing to vicious to the splice at the drop of a hat. Brody's character had a sense of ethics, but didn't follow through on them because he was weak and always deferred to her, and despite his self-righteous ranting, he never took matters into his own hands...if he intended to terminate the splice, instead of say going off in secret and doing it in quiet, he always brought her along, presumably because he lacked the spine to do it himself.

I totally thought they both were pigheaded fucks and they lead several innocents to their death as a result. that's one of the things I liked about the movie. the sex scene was where it headed into b-movie territory.

You like movies where the leads are pigheaded fucks for no reason? I don't understand. I don't need characters to be good people or anything, but someone in the movie has to have something that makes them at least relatable, if not likable. Otherwise, I'm just gonna have the same feeling I have when I'm around my extended family: why the fuck did I put myself in the same room as these loathsome jerks? Which is how I felt through this whole movie. (Well, Dren was an object of pity for a while, but it's hard to really feel too connected to a character that can't talk & has kangaroo legs & also is pretty gross looking.)

If a movie maker *wanted* me to feel that way, then I would say that movie maker is a sadist.

This movie, actually, it reminds me a lot of "Nell."

BTW I am ok w/people liking this movie, plenty of people w/taste I respect like this movie, including Roger Ebert & latebloomer. And at the same time I will never understand their opinion!

It would be like people big-upping "Bogus" if "Bogus" included Gerard Depardieu raping both Whoopi Goldberg & Haley Joel Osment.

No I don't specifically seek out movies where the lead characters are pigheaded fucks, but I think it was a good device for this movie. I don't think the directors portrayed either character as a hero, and the results turned out to be terrible. People died, and Sarah Polley's character had to carry a possibly violent splice spawn to term and deliver it.

Lots of movies of the "oh noes we went too far what did we did" ilk paint the protagonists as good-hearted individuals who were misguided in what they were doing. The movie clearly portrayed the two leads as people who could have pulled the plug at any time, both of whom knew the risks, and one of whom was staunchly opposed to the experiment, yet they kept going anyway. Adrien Brody's character wasn't an over the top vile human being either, he showed empathy to the splice moreso than Sarah Polley's character...all of which unraveled when he fucked the splice, of course.

The two leads being such assholes led me to feel sympathetic for the Splice character -- I like that the movie empathized with the "monster", who was really just an abnormally constructed creature trying to find a comfortable niche in society, which it could never have while in custody of those two nimrods. So that's where I drew my enjoyment -- I sympathized with the splice. It was being treated like the monster, when in reality the two creators were the monsters for putting it in that situation.

I didn't love the movie by any means -- the 'sex' bit was ridiculous and completely changed the tone of the movie. Sarah Polley's character got somewhat cardboard at times. But I think it was a good movie.

It would be like people big-upping "Bogus" if "Bogus" included Gerard Depardieu raping both Whoopi Goldberg & Haley Joel Osment.

have you never liked a movie which had an irascible main character? i mean i'm trying to follow what yr saying but it sounds to me like using this logic, we could toss aside Clockwork Orange (not that I'm even REMOTELY comparing Splice to Clockwork Orange, just for example) since Malcolm McDowell's character was such a vile human being (at least until he was manipulated into behaving).

(btw didn't mean that in a condescending way, just think my original post may have been misunderstood, i might not have articulated it as well as icould have)

He was kind of charming and funny, though, and he was wronged by the government in a way that meant you could not really hate him. I have liked plenty of movies with "irascible main characters" from Harry Lime to Alex to the kids in "Capturing the Friedmans." The people in Splice just had zero anything to make me not totally hate them!

well I mean I thought Adrien Brody's character was easier to feel some sympathy for, he was a spineless goof but at least the ethical questions and concerns that should have been occupying both of their brains entered his at some point in time. He was just too chickenshit to actually do anything about it.

that said it's not like this movie would wind up on a best of list for me this year...I mean it devolved into a b-movie fast

IDK, in my opinion, "raping (what is essentially) your daughter (that is also part animal, making it also bestiality)" kind of kills any sympathy I have for a character. This is just me.

How was it rape? Dren (the creature) clearly seduced Clive...actually it was the second time she seduced him, he just rebuffed her the first time. Unless we're talking statutory here, which doesn't really apply since its age in relative to human years wasn't possible to measure since it matures at an accelerated rate. Or "rape" in the context that Dren was not in the capacity to decide for herself, though I'd argue that one in this case, given her demonstration of clear intent and the intelligence she possessed. Doesn't make it not wrong, since it was adultery and completely irresponsible (for reasons that you hint at above, ie beastiality), but certainly not rape.

also it wasn't technically incest as Dren didn't have any of Clive's DNA, only Elsa's. (again, doesn't make it not 'wrong', as he was still acting as a guardian, but definitely wasn't incest).

I would argue it was rape because:

1. Adrien Brody was her DAD (in the sense that Dren was a product of his & his wife's genetic information). If a real dad's adolescent daughter tried to "seduce" him, I should hope most people would not call it a-ok, up-and-up, complication free, consensual sex. I feel extra gross saying this, but she clearly was an adolescent of some sort, even under the framework of her accelerated growth (also, since she became a male when she was a full-grown 'adult' also means she was in some in between adolescence at this point). When they showed her tiny, underdeveloped, 12-year-old-style breasts I felt like I was watching some intensely fucked-up fantasy.

2. She wasn't really a PERSON: isn't that why people say bestiality is wrong? The animal can't express consent? Dren can't speak English, Dren clearly has some sort of "intelligence" but she wasn't even able to take care of herself, that kind of dependence means she probably isn't developmentally ready to show consent either.

Actually the link ico posted did a good job with why this squicked me out so much: http://makesomelove.livejournal.com/227249.html

Ok, even if Dren did not have his genetic info, Dren still had his wife's genetic info. Dren was clearly a daughter figure to both of them, even if he was not a DAD he was in loco parentis, right? Meaning he shouldn't be putting his dick in it.

I thought the whole sex scene was fucked up and exploitative, even if not rape. Also when Dren becomes a man creature at the end, it rapes Sarah Polley, unless you want to present an argument as to why that was OK, too.

where did I ever say it was ok?

I am mad at this movie, and not at you, I am feeling like a fucked up & gross person even talking about this movie. If a person tries to argue something like that 'isn't rape' I feel like they're somehow endorsing it, even if they aren't. I know you weren't endorsing it. I just don't get how anyone could say that scene was her seducing him.

I saw it on my birthday, too, it really killed my birthday buzz.

gotcha - no worries, i understand where you are coming from

Yeah--this movie could have been good, and had some good ideas, but wasn't handled well enough to cope with the seriousness of some of the stuff Abbott raises. Weirdly, I think a film with much the same plot, even the sex stuff, could work really well, but you'd need another writer and director.

i'll admit that scene was very o_O to me

Shit, that Livejournal page is unreadable

I didn't think much about the morality of the scene you guys have been debating, but I do know I instinctively looked over to other people in the theatre with a kind of "Is this actually happening?" disbelief.

Also, my co-audience members were all laughing at that scene, and not in an ironic way, just 'Dude's fucking the monster, funny!" way

All these different weird audience lol moments reported here just make me think people didn't know how to react to this movie.

Or that there was no sane way to react.

um, you know it's fiction, right?

I thought it was a documentary that had the sort of true-to-life dialogue people laugh at!

yeah, that scene was squirm inducing in a very unique way. def made us all look at each other like "whaaaaaa?" i actually mentioned it when Splice was brought up on a different thread. i think considering the morality involved was a couple steps beyond the level of suspension of disbelief the movie achieved for me, though.

yeah, dogtooth - which the critics are loving - creeped me out a lot more than this precisely because it was so goddamn batshit

Actually, both were pretty batshit. Splice was just a lot more fantastical and didn't ask me to watch static shots portraying graphic incest.

I felt like it was trying to do the Cronenberg half-funny/half-serious thing, but never really getting the tone or the balance right.

Also, it was just dumb. Glad I went to see it, though, for some reason.

i mean, i guess the morality aspect of having sex with a non-human that was sorta kinda your daughter was part of why it was so squirm-inducing, but i didn't really find myself disgusted with the guy's ethics so much as just the bizarre physical act

the trying for Cronenberg but not quite achieving it is totally otm

In Canada, where it's from, the posters I saw called it "Nouvelle espèce" which they probably couldn't call it here in the US for obvious copyright-related reasons

I felt like it was trying to do the Cronenberg half-funny/half-serious thing, but never really getting the tone or the balance right.

they should have consulted depeche mode

to get the balance right

..right?

<3 you latebloomer

aww <3 u 2 abbs!

I wonder how much money it's made. Because the ending was so blatantly insert-sequel-here it was funny.

It definitely made no money in the US, though it might have done OK overseas.

I loved this btw, but I have a huge soft spot for well-executed pervy sci-fi. (The last act was severely rushed, mind.)

This wasn't going to show anywhere in Exeter and Kermode liked it, soni arranged a screening via Twitter and got the local Vue to show it and convinced 20+ people to turn up and I knew what Brody was going to do with the baby monster girl experiment but no one else did so I feel responsible for traumatising all these people.

I am feeling like a fucked up & gross person even talking about this movie

They succeeded in something because this goooot to yooooou.

I spent the last 1/2 to 1/3 going "ugh, they went this route."

The whole thing could be summarized as "Scientist has mother issues."

i never thought it was rape. just gross.

Yeah, I think legal definitions of rape go out of the window when it's a genetic mutant animal baby teen britney alien thing.

plus, it just seemed like she was totally up for shagging her dad.

Adrien Brody's character in this is basically the ultimate passive-aggressive creepozoid of all time.

plus he was ugly

loved this movie- so perverted and silly. Gotta say, as a critique of "the family" it's pretty withering.
loved the b-movie-ness too.

Rather a cool little film. Dren was great, the balance of creepiness and sympathy was really nicely judged. Quite liked Sarah Pooley's performance as well. Adrien Brody continues to prove he's the go-to guy in Hollywood for playing utter bellends.

this was really good. entirely different from what I expected (was thinking this was more straight forward horror or something).

i liked this as i too like "perverted and silly" thriller-sci-fi and seeing immoral characters get their comeuppance, but stopped short of actually enjoying it because it's not quite B-movie enough to get away with cheap drama for emotional reaction. (aside: adrien brody is a perfect B-movie actor! he ruled it in Predators imo). e.g., -- spoilers --> things like 'here is a cat. now you know this cat will die. not now but soon.' FU. too much dramatic seriousness where there should have been schlockyness. when brody's character statutorily rapes Dren, i was like, does she have some kind of mind/penis control too?? whoa. oh but no, he is just unable to see the wrongness. at which point i realized it was just a haunted house/monster movie in which everyone must die except for the blond girl who goes on to profit.

i thought the film looked very good though, sort of like an later ep of X-files meets cronenberg c. existenz