Splice

Fig. 1 Splice poster. The film Splice directed by Vincenzo Natali is a French Canadian sci-fi horror about two genetic engineers Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) who hope to achieve fame by successfully splicing together the DNA of different animals to create new hybrid animals for medical use. They then embark and are intrigued into what may happen if they also spliced human DNA within their experiment. The experiment begins to grow at an alarming rate much faster than the average human and begins slowly to grow up in the world much like a human being and acting like a human being but just, just looking like a human. Clive and Elsa welcome this Splice into their world with open arms, willing to look after her and take on the responsibilities of their actions, with that they also name her Dren as the next step in human evolution. An experiment to create an animal/human hybrid that could revolutionize modern day medicine if it doesnt destroy humanity first. (Jason Buchanan, Rovi)

Fig. 2 Dren as a baby.

Dren the specimen/experiment goes through many rapid stages of growing, through to learning and even freaking the humans out at some points due to how intelligent she actually is. Clive and Elsa were original experimenting on already two made spliced experiments with great success the two spliced experiments got on fine and even fell in love. Clive and Elsa then go onto showing the world these two experiments to show what success they have made with their experiments and how much it may change future medicines, They then introduce the two experiments together again but soon find out that something has gone terribly wrong and both specimens have turned into males. Because before one was male and the other female, but in this instance the female turns into a male just like that which is when everything goes wrong and they start to brutally attack each other. Which by this point leaves the audience with well if that happened to that experiment it might even happen to Dren their new spliced human hybrid experiment. Drens ability to grow at a faster rate than humans, she begins to develop what seems to being human thoughts and feelings for other showing the audience the definite human within her, At one point through the film Clive knows that keeping this experiment is a really bad idea when his brother finds out about the experiment. Dren becomes to get ill at some stage, were she seems to be overheating and not being able to breath properly, both Clive and Elsa instantly think of placing her into a water tank to cool her down because the amount of heat she it producing due to being ill. They also discover she has what seems to be a slight swollenness within her that feels like it may be a tumour. Clive and Elsa place her into the tank to cool her down and then this is when Clive gets the idea of getting rid of the experiment once and for all and trying to drown her, Which they then discover that she didnt actually have a tumour what Dren had was actually gills much like a fish and she breathed underwater which was why she was overheating was because she needed to get to some water. As Dren gets older she becomes to get quite loud which, much like a screaming child which at this point Clive and Elsa make a decision to move her to a barn with her own room and somewhere to stay but refuse her from allowing her to see the outside world due to Clive and Elsa not actually getting permission to do this experiment in the first place. Elsa and Clive call this entity Dren, the reverse of Nerd (Peter Bradshaw) As the film comes on Dren becomes more different and intelligent, from breathing underwater, becoming intelligent within the human life, gaining wings and even changing gender as we find out later on at the end of the film. As the film goes on more inevitable things happen for example Dren having sex with Clive due to him being so much in work and study he needs sex and realises that Dren actually has Elsas DNA, therefore Clive sees Elsas DNA within Dren and actually get physical attracted to her because of the way she acts, exactly the same as Elsa. Evenutally Dren changes even more and becomes male and ends up even killing Clive and rapeing Elsa until all comes to the end when Elsa kills Dren with a large rock.

Fig. 3 Dren as an Adult. A Frankenstein with a beating, gene-spliced heart and top of the range performances (Newman)

Fig. 4 Dren as an Adult when she turns male. Illustration Fig. 1 (2009) Splice Poster http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1017460/ (accessed on 17/10/2011) Fig. 2 (2009) Dren as a baby http://www.fusedfilm.com/2010/01/sundance-2010-twitter-reportvincenzo-natalis-splice-gets-all-the-buzz-sundance-queen-kristen-stewart-in-welcome-to-the-rileysreitmanss-in-the-air-has-great-company-ryan-reynoldss-buried/ (accessed on 17/10/2011) Fig. 3 (2009) Dren as an Adult Female http://uk.gamespot.com/unions/18091/forums/27389253 (accessed on 17/10/2011) Fig. 4 (2009) Dren as an Adult when she turns male http://andrewsidea.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/splice16.png (accessed on 17/10/2011)

Bibliography

(Jason Buchanan, Rovi) (2010) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1208173-splice/ (accessed on 17/10/2011) (Peter Bradshaw) (2010) http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jul/22/splice-review (accessed on 17/10/2011) (Newman) (2010) http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=135263 (accessed on 17/10/2011)