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OK, time to watch Splice. I generally dismissed this when it first came out as a knockoff of Species, which had a pretty impressively stupid premise to begin with. People who have seen it however generally seem to agree that it forgets to be a horror movie long enough that when it finally remembers towards the end it makes for a jarring terrible mess. That's a pretty good way to trigger the CS Signal right there. Anyway, the opening credits are all just kinda formed as veins and growths and birthmarks on some kinda critter in a tube we're panning around. Or maybe it's a critter in a womb, because we seem to be going straight into a POV delivery room scene here. This is kind of funny really. Everyone just kinda hovering around the walleye camera here. So... yeah, we're just totally starting up in media res here. These scientists here are just kinda... breeding these cure little uh... penis newt guinea pigs? They act and sound cute enough, but they really are pretty vile looking things.
Oh now we're explaining it. These people are into gene splicing, and the penis newt guinea pigs are the result of their mixing a bunch of random critters genes around to get weird critters that excrete handy chemicals and do testing. They want to try mixing some human DNA in there with their next atrocity and do cancer research and such, but their corporate backers are all "Dude the government is SO NOT GOING TO APPROVE of you going all Dr. Moreau with people and PNGPs. Honestly we're just going to shut you guys down right now, and see if we can't find some way of synthesizing those handy proteins in a less creepy fashion. So the main characters here head back to home to... wow seriously? Their company is called NERD. It doesn't even stand for something that convoluted. Anyway though, yeah, they're all screw you man! We're hip young rebels and we're going to make our monster baby!
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This is honestly the plot of like, every bad B-movie, but thing here is, we're showing it from the horribly misguided scientists' perspective, and making them really hip young likable protagonist types. Which is refreshing, but I'm pretty sure they're still doomed to be killed by their own creation, only now instead of being poetic justice it'll just be kind of a downer. So far all the random technobabble has seemed a lot more like science than, you know, Science! too. Whether it'll all end in tears or not, it's kinda nice to depict scientists as well intentioned realistic nerds than morally bankrupt jerks in lab coats and glasses like every other movie does. They're recording data and listening to techno and collecting odd ironic toys and stuff.
And... now the artificial womb's water is breaking. Which is to say a pressure valve was over-cranked and it sprung a leak. Monster Baby IS presumably good to go though... mostly. It's kind of a big nasty flesh colored tadpole with a poisonous bite though, which put Mrs. Scientist into some kinda seizure. Or possibly a stinger actually. They don't kill it though, because, you know, science, but they do feel bad about it for reasons of sympathy. Also they've got a big ol' manga poster over their bed I can't place. Like some sort of Speed Racer era steampunky knight screaming or something. I'm ging to assume until told otherwise this isn't actually from anything, and is one of those deals like the posters that eventually caused Dirty Pair to be created.
Anyway, the next day they go to check on their monster tadpole in an incubator. It seems to be dead but... oh, nope! It's empty. Some kind of chicken-monkey has burst out of it and is running all over the room freaking out. It's kinda cute is a creepy sorta way. Mr. Scientist is all for gassing it, but Mrs. Scientist is going all emotional and taking off her protective clothing and going to pet it and such. Now that I see it up close I suppose it's more of a chicken-mouse than a chicken-monkey, and it really is cute aside from the two little nose feelers and the only two legs and the creepy head seam. Anyway, it's asleep and they're doing tests on it, and Mr. Scientist still wants to kill it, because they didn't REALLY want to make a half-human monster, they just wanted to make a half-human monster fetus and vivisect it. It's doing this whole rapid aging thing though, so it went and was born early. Mrs. Scientist figures it'll probably die early too, so hey, may as well play this thing out.
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And... now this is suddenly some kind of hilarious satire of having a baby. They've got it chained up to a big water tank, trying to feed it dietary mush with a turkey baster, and it's just kinda screaming and spitting up and soiling itself, and stealing tic-tacs, and oh hey! It's got stubby little T-Rex arms! They've also got a big plastic bottle around its poisonous tail barb for safety. Oh and apparently the female PNGP is having hormonal imbalances which sucks on the funding front. Skipping ahead to day 20, yeah, we have now officially left horror movie territory for the time being. We now have some kinda cute little monster toddler with a tail wearing a little dress playing with scrabble pieces and spelling out NERD because it's on Mrs. Scientist's shirt and such. They're also going to have to move it down to the basement because this wing's getting shut down.
Also, it strikes me that this movie has a secret agenda of causing couples to fight. The main characters here are both pretty likable, but you can argue Mr. Scientist is some big uncaring MAN who just wants to kill things and has no compassion, and you can also argue that Mrs. Scientist is some stupid overemotional WOMAN who doesn't care about logic and science and is treating this monster they made like it's her freaking baby. It's a little heavy handed in both cases really. Oh and they're calling the monster Dren because it's nerd backwards, and that was her first word kinda. So... I guess if they had a regular human baby, they'd end up naming it On or Amam or something. Anyway, now baby's al sick apparently, and Mrs. Scientist is totally i mother mode, but Mr. Scientist hasn't had his sexist hate button pressed recently, so.... he tries to drown her in the bathtub. Turns out she can breathe underwater though. He's acting like oh yeah I totally knew that! I wasn't trying to kill your monster baby at all, I was just trying to help with her fever, that's the ticket.
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Now here's Mrs. Scientist giving the monster a freaking Barbie. Incidentally, this movie IS pretty technically nice on mixing makeup/prosthetics with CG. They're kinda going for some intentional uncanny valley stuff too. Anyway, they've just brought their little monster girl home with them at this point, and we've got one of those kid seeing the parents having sex from around the corner deals. Now though it's time to check in with the main plot that we've taken a break from for way too long. As we all know, this is REALLY a movie about making scientific presentations of penis newt guinea pigs. So they take their terrarium, set it up on a big stage with a bunch of press people between them, and remove the dividers so everyone can see them totally get it on for the first time ever. Instead though they pop little fangs out and proceed to totally murder the heck out of each other. Whoops. Looking at the research their assistant has been doing while they TOTALLY goof off and play with monster girl, turns out the female PNGP underwent a spontaneous gender change over the past few weeks, and it turns out when you have two male PNGPs they fight to the death. Because, again, MALES ARE EVIL AND ONLY WANT TO KILL THINGS.
Anyway, since funding is pretty much totally getting cut, it's officially time to leave the lab and take our monster to Mrs. Scientist's dead mother's abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Because that's TOTALLY a good idea that won't lead to a horror movie climax at all! She immediately runs off into the woods, and they find her devouring a squirrel or something. It's... honestly entirely too cute. I should probably note that at this point Monster Girl is pretty much just a normal human girl who's bald, makes little chittering noises, and technically has the poison tail and digitigrade legs going on. Totally normal looking from the waste up though. Oh, and a pointy tongue, and eyes that are a bit too far apart. and now a tiny princess tiara! She's getting into Mrs. Scientist's old stuff... and you darn well better not go and eat that cat or you lose ALL sympathy from me Little Miss Monster! Oh good, she's just petting it. Oh, was a rabbit before.
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Anyway, yeah, she's officially communicating through scrabble toys and body language now. Saying living in a barn is "tedious" and wanting to go "outside" and throwing a tantrum, and jumping through a window. Honestly, I think people are right. This IS going to be a lot less interesting once it gets around to turning back into a plain ol' horror movie. Anyway, she gets up on the roof and... spontaneously sprouts freaky looking wings and fins and is going to fly away, but then Mr. Scientist is all "Wait, don't go! We love you!" so she retracts all that, and gives him a hug. So this is officially their kid now I guess, and she's drawing crayon pictures of Daddy and physically maturing, and... kinda getting a major Electra complex. Clearly, she wants to bang Daddy, and Mommy just arbitrarily took her secret pet cat away, mirroring her own issues with a mother that made her sleep in a closet with no toys when she was little before she was whisked away to Hogwarts. OK, without the Hogwarts bit. Thanks again though movie for not killing the cat. I mean, seriously, I can't remember seeing anything since Alien with even a slightly horror vibe that contained a cat that wasn't horribly killed, and it's kind of my personal personal berserk button.
Anyway, Mommy gave the kid a nice dress and some makeup and now Daddy's teaching her to dance. This movie is doing a pretty good job of making me feel bad saying Monster all the time. Oh and Mr. Scientist just noticed that she kinda looks like them, so he's all "Hey! Did you secretly mix our DNA together to make your monster there our actual daughter? Because that is a really @#$%ed up thing to go and do, especially without saying so." Also makes the Electra concept here squickier.... and... yeah, I'm done liking this movie now. Mom feels all guilty, gives the cat back, and Monster just out of spite stabs it. Mrs. Scientist is not cool with that @#$% either, so she clubs her over he head with a rake and takes away all her jewelry and cutting her clothes off and denying any human qualities she may have, and deciding to be all sciencey again. She's also going to cut her poison tail off. Oh yes, and we do get to see monster boobs during all this for what it's worth.
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Mr. Scientist comes home to see this and... yeah, these two have officially TOTALLY switched personalities. He's all crying and sympathetic and she's al come on let's do scientific research now. Oh and for the record? It is officially the cat killing that has Mrs. Scientist losing it here, that's not me projecting. It's the first thing she says when Mr. Scientist is all WTF? Oh and Mrs. Scientist got the McGuffin protein from doing blood work on the severed tail, like, immediately. So uh... you two suck? If you'd taken the ONE DAY to actually work on this a couple months ago, you'd have no funding problems and not be in so much of a problem. Also, Monster is now officially seducing Daddy. Successfully. That's just gross. She's like, less than a year old. And your daughter. WTF man. Plus didn't you hear she killed a cat? Anyway, his is a pretty boobs-and-bare-butts-y scene here. I'd object to it a lot more if the seduction bit didn't start off with a display of plumage. Seriously, she popped all her wings out and shook'em and such. Oh and she regrows her tail in the middle of it. Also, Mrs. Scientist walks in on them in the middle of it. She is... less than pleased. She's also the only sympathetic character left in the movie at this point. Monster killed her pet cat and is thus dead to me. Mr. Scientist just slept with his cat killing seriously underage daughter... and their corporate backers... actually no, their corporate backers are completely reasonable people who have made nothing but sound decisions the whole movie. I guess they're cool.
So yeah, awkward conversation time. Of course, on the plus side, earlier foreshadowing suggests you CAN eventually get back at your husband when Monster Girl spontaneously becomes male. I mean, it'll PROBABLY be a rape you and kill you deal, but still, balances the scales right? Anyway, they get over everything uh... entirely too fast really. They kiss and make up, go to check on the kid, she's floating in her big tub of water that was already there, and... apparently dead. Seriously though, how the heck did you forgive your husband for that one lady? It's freaking insane. So she's lying in bed, probably dying. They're burning and burying all her toys, Mrs. Scientist finds that she secretly did have a stack of pictures she drew of her too, which would work better as a plot point if she was jealous. She totally hadn't picked up on the Electra thing though until seeing the results. She flipped out over the cat thing. Only reason to show those now is to foreshadow the plot twist I'm totally calling a bit more, and I think this way of doing it is way too subtle.
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Anyway, their boss shows up (who is also Mr. Scientist's brother, how'd I miss that?), having run tests on the McGuffin research and IMMEDIATELY working out the entire plot of the movie. Like I said, he's the token smart reasonable person in the movie. Also dead. Turns out they buried Monster prematurely, it did indeed turn spontaneously male, and again, that means being a murderous jerk. Might mean raping Mommy too. Also, Monster is living in a pond out back now. Are we going to get a sequel tease at the end where there's some eggs in there? Oh, and Monster learns to talk just in time to explain his intention to rape Mommy right before doing so. Then Daddy comes along to stab him with a big wooden spike just in time to.... totally not get there in time really. Also, he misses all the vital organs. So they go off to fight, Mommy saves the day with a great big rock to the head, but Monster has just enough energy left to pull a quick heart-stab on Daddy.
Now investor lady is debriefing Mrs. Scientist some time later, explaining that Monster was totally a jackpot of biochemical research, so hey! Some good came out of it! And... is she offering to buy the new monster Mrs. Scientist is now pregnant with for further research? Of course she is. And she's up for it too, because hey, cut your losses, right? Or as she puts it, "What's the worst that could happen?" Why, further cat stabbings of course! Although actually, honestly? We're now totally above board with this, getting an actual proper full research team involved, and using secure facilities? That actually WOULD probably all work out OK. Kinda weird how we're just glossing right over the whole dead husband and brother-in-law though. They were given absolutely NO mourning time whatsoever here. Couldn't we have had some crying before that flash-forward?
Seriously speaking though, people need to stop freaking killing every cat that's in a movie. At this point it's both something that I personally just never want to see, AND it's way too predictable. If you show me a cat, I know you're going to kill it for a big shock moment. It happens 100% of the freaking time. Therefore, it is no longer an effective gimmick. Actually wait, the Hellboy movies had a total horror vibe and they've got a TON of cats which aren't killed. There's even the hilarious fight scene with box of kittens in there. So yeah, see everyone else? Guillermo del Toro knows not to kill cats, and that guy knows what the @%#$ he's doing better than all of you! Follow his example!
