SPLICE (!!!)

June 10, 2010

When this movie ended and the sounds of the heart beating (presumably from Elsa’s womb) on the black screen continued, Rachel began groping around on the ground for something. “What are you looking for?” I asked. “My dignity!” she said. Actually she was looking for her purse, which was on the empty seat next to her. Rachel refused to talk about this movie with me though I was filled to bursting with questions. The only good thing she said about it was that it made her feel better about HER life. So there’s a plus. She was feeling pretty down. Oh and she also wished the movie hadn’t dropped the carefree Hipster thing that was going on in the beginning.

Before I get to the synopsis, here are some questions that I’m going to throw out there:

1: Was the freaky man-flying guy who blew up out of the ground and destroyed and raped everything in sight the CHILD of Dren and Clive? Or was he simply Dren turned male?

2: Why was Elsa so stupid throughout the whole film?

3: Why did Elsa want to move into a bigger home if she DOESN’T want a normal baby, and why does Clive NOT want to move, but want a baby? It just seems illogical.

4: Did Dren learn how to have sex only after seeing Clive and Elsa do it? Or did she already instinctively know how? And if the answer is the former? Would none of this craziness have happened if Clive and Elsa had been more discreet in their love-making?

5: Can Dren see through video screens?

6: When Dren and Clive were having sex and then her pointy death-tail unsheathed, was that because she was nervous and saw Elsa in the doorway, or because she was going to pull some sort of Praying Mantis thing and kill him the moment he finished and Elsa’s presence had sort of saved his life, while she simultaneously lost her dignity?

These are my questions.

The movie starts with some sort of primordial soup and freaky deeky music. Then the credits show up sort of grossly imprinted or carved on abstract parts of internal organs and spinal cords and stuff. Then there’s this accumulation of veins that come to the surface of this sort of grayish-green skin and the veins spell out SPLICE. After watching previews for THE LAST EXORCISM and JONAH HEX, when this weird opener happened, Rachel turned to me and was like “I just remembered what movie we came here to watch, and a wave of disappointment washed over me.”

Then we meet Elsa and Clive. They are “delivering” a life form into the world and it almost dies, but then it’s okay. Elsa and Clive are two young, beautiful, hipster scientists who created these gross, gross blobs of meat that sort of wiggle around. The meat blobs are named Fred and Ginger. They do this thing with their purple tongues and reproduce and everyone is like, awww. Then Elsa and Clive go to a meeting and they are like, look what we did, it is so awesome! Now can we make some creatures with human characteristics? That would be good for humankind! and this French woman, who I think is my favorite character is like, why don’t we do things one step at a time. Let’s focus on harvesting this one protein that I wanted you guys to make. And this other uptight guy is like, yeah, you should focus on this protein harvesting because using human elements would create a very big moral dilemma and would just be a big mess in general. But do Elsa and Clive listen? NO! They’re like aw man! This is so not cool! And they’re all pouty and stuff sitting on the couch and behind them they have all these weird hipster Japanese action figures. Then there’s a little subplot where Clive is like, let’s have a baby. And Elsa is like no, I’m not so into that. And Elsa’s like, hey look at this picture of a nice apartment we could live in! and Clive’s like, eh. I’M not so into THAT. (refer to question #3)

Well, they decide to be rebels and create their own life form with human elements. In the lab, they say all this weird science jargon and are often disappointed and we know that time has gone by because Clive has eaten both pizza AND Chinese food. Then it works and Clive goes to freeze it, and is like, well now we know we can do it! but Elsa goes and puts it in an ovum and it begins to form. (Question #2) So then they do their work with the protein blobs Fred and Ginger, but are constantly distracted with the secret mutant womb. There’s this random scene where Elsa is monitoring it and then the heart stops for a while. She’s like, “come on, come on.” and then the heart starts again. Then the machine goes all haywire and it looks like the life form is ready to “be born.” Elsa’s like, well, since the machine’s all messed up, I’m going to have to do this manually. So she sticks her arm into the synthetic womb and then SOMETHING GRABS HER ARM AND PULLS IT FARTHER IN, AND SHE CAN’T GET IT OUT! Clive breaks the glass and the whole thing falls down and lets go of Elsa’s arm. Then Elsa goes into shock and the fleshy thing is all squirming around. Clive puts a plastic container over it to trap it and tends to Elsa, who’s foaming at the mouth and doesn’t look good. He gives her a shot, and then she’s ok, and goes, “what was that?” and Clive goes, “a mistake.” and Clive’s like, I’ve go to kill that thing, but Elsa’s like, no no no. (Question #2 again) So it goes in an incubator and they check on it, and are like, oh dang, it’s dead. Elsa cuts open the fleshy thing, but then realizes the THE INSIDE IS EMPTY. Then she hears something scurrying around in the room. It moves very quickly and bounces all over the place like a flesh colored ball. She’s all panicky and Clive is on the outside of the room and can see her through the glass. Then he’s like, get out of there I’m going to gas the place (by the way it’s pretty amazing that he has a room that he can just fill with gas if he wants.) and Elsa crouches down and is like, “It’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you.” and then the little creature comes out and here is a picture. At this point Rachel turns to me and says that the movie SHOULD have been called: Hipsters create bald rabbit bird hamster. Meanwhile, Clive is like, Elsa, get out of there, I’m going to turn on the gas. But she doesn’t (again, #2).

Clive’s brother also works in the lab, and is like, hey Clive, Ginger’s estrogen levels are a little low. And Clive’s like, yeah yeah ok, I’ll look at that later. But he’s too busy with he and Elsa’s freak baby. They have to keep it a secret and it wails a lot and won’t eat. But then they realize it likes sweet stuff so they give that to it. Clive is like, this has gone on long enough! but Elsa’s like, the life cycle on this specimen is super quick! Don’t worry about it! But then the lab is getting some renovations, so they have to move freak baby. Elsa finds out that the little thing can spell, but she keeps talking to it like it’s a baby when we all know that it is probably way smart. She calls her Dren, which is Nerd spelled backwards. Then Gavin walks in on them and Dren almost kills him with her spike tail. Whoops! Then Dren gets the flu and is too hot. So Clive is like, well this would be a good time to kill it, so he tries to drown her but SHE HAS GILLS! Elsa is elated. She’s like thank you for saving Dren’s life, and it’s a little awkward for Clive because he’s like, no problem, even though I was hoping I would have the opposite effect. Then Clive and his brother have a little heart to heart where Clive’s brother is like you are a total dumb-ass to listen to your stupid girlfriend all the time. Bad things are going to happen and look at the horrible position you put me in. It is very true.

Then one night, after Dren is tucked in, Clive and Elsa totally do it right outside her room. But she’s awake and watches them doing it. Clive sees this, but Elsa doesn’t and it is really fucked up. But it gets more fucked up soon.

Oh man, and then there’s the best scene of the whole movie. Clive and Elsa and the French woman go to this huge benefit where they present Fred and Ginger to the audience to show how they reproduce and create more proteins and how this is a breakthrough in medical technology, and while Elsa is saying something like, “The age-old beauty of love…” or something, Fred and Ginger start to attack each other with spikes. The whole glass display case that they are in fills with blood and then falls down and the whole audience gets covered in blood and there is blood and pieces of flesh everywhere. It is AMAZING. So what happened was, Ginger became a man instead of a woman, and this went unnoticed by Clive and Elsa because they have to take care of Dren. Whoopsies. They decide to move Dren to Elsa’s dead mom’s farm. All we know is that Elsa was treated badly by her mom, and doesn’t like the farm so much because it reminds her of her mom.

So they get Dren to the farm and then she runs away and devours a rabbit. But then they bring her into the barn where she lives and she makes friends with a cat and has a little pool that she can swim in and she swings from the rafters sometimes. Here she is as a mature woman.

But Dren is sad and spells out TEDIOUS with her scrabble tiles and then jumps out the window. Clive and Elsa follow her to the roof and they discover THAT SHE HAS WINGS! She is about to fly away, but then Clive is like, WE LOVE YOU! and so she comes back and gives him a hug. I think Elsa is a little jealous, and after finding some pictures that Dren drew of Clive, she takes away the cat friend, saying “you have to learn that sometimes you can’t have what you want.” and then Clive comes and they dance around to make her feel better and she falls in love with him, and Clive looks into her horsey eyes and then has to leave. He has made a discovery. He goes and finds Elsa and is like, YOU PUT YOUR DNA INTO DREN! YOU CAN MAKE A BABY LIKE AN EXPERIMENT BUT YOU CAN’T HAVE A BABY WITH ME? GOD! and then he says she’s fucked up.

Elsa then goes to visit Dren to sort of apologize and returns the cat. But Dren stabs the cat with her tail because she won’t be manipulated. Also because she’s part animal. Then she takes the key from around Elsa’s neck and tries to escape. But Elsa whacks her over the head with a shovel. Then she cuts off her tail and takes off her clothes and goes back to calling her a specimen. Which is really mean, but the audience is supposed to be like, ah. Like mother, like daughter. THEN Clive comes back from the lab, and Elsa’s like, I’ll use this tail stub to make the protein we need, seeya! Clive sees Dren all naked and exposed and tied up and feels very sad. He unties her and puts some covers on her and then he goes back to the house. They have video cameras set up in Dren’s barn area so Clive sort of spies on her. She is swimming seductively in her pool. He reaches to touch the screen and so does dren. This freaks Clive out. (Question #5) Then he goes to visit her and they have sex. It is really fucked up. Dren spreads her wings and it is just really weird. It’s like Clive is having sex with a mixture of his daughter, a total freak, and Elsa. This is the point where Dren’s spike tail is healed and gets all spiky like she’s going to stab Clive, but Elsa walks in on them. (question #6) It’s pretty awkward. Then Elsa drives away.

(Ug they have been doing construction outside my window since eight this morning. The only progress I can see right now are a series of holes out in the middle of people’s lawns. I feel like my head might explode.)

So then Elsa and Clive have a little fight about the mutant affair and actually they sort of make up a little. Then Dren dies. They bury her and then the brother and a science guy come and are like, ok, where is the specimen! This is so illegal! And Clive and Elsa are like, she’s already dead, and they are pretty down about it. But then something shoots through the sky and the science dude is up in a tree with a totally slashed face. Whoa. Something is amiss. This would have been a good time to end the movie, but it keeps going.

Then the brother is taken and we learn that his name is Gavin at this point, because Clive is running through the forest, saying GAVIN! GAVIN! The monster is a flying creepy male chimera. (Question #1) Clive gets sucked into a pool and then sort of spit back out. Elsa is like, what do you want from me? and the mutant, who can speak, goes “IIIINNSSIIIIIDEE YOOOOU!” and then he rapes her. Then Clive stabs him with a stick and then the mutant stabs him with his tail. I felt that this rape was sort of incestuous. Because if it is just the male transformation of Dren then, he’s doing his mom, sort of because she provided the DNA for Dren’s, and alternately, his creation. If it’s the son of Clive and Dren, then it’s like he’s doing his step-grandmother. Either way, it’s no good. Then she hits him over the head with a rock and he dies. So she’s the only survivor.

The French woman is back with Elsa in a clean office and is like, the protein you provided us with is amazing. Thanks. Are you sure you want to have this baby? and Elsa, with a wry smile, says, What’s the worst that could happen? So she decides to keep the baby (Again, question #2) Rachel is convinced that she wants to keep it because it could be Clive’s from when they did it and Dren watched them. And the French woman puts her hands on Elsa’s shoulders and stands in the window with her. THE END.

Written by Sophie Grimes Posted in Erotic Thriller, Movie Summary, Sci-Fi Thriller, Uncategorized Tagged with Adrien Brody, Chimera, Clive, DREN, Hipsters create bald rabbit bird hamster, Meat Blobs Fred and Ginger, Messed up family with manmade child, Sarah Polley, Splice, Stupid Elsa, Tedious with scrabble tiles