Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Splice in 200 Words or Less

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I got home last night after watching Splice expecting someone to be home. No one was. The lights were all off and I stumbled halfway through the apartment when I recognized my heart beating faster than it normally would be, and I suddenly realized that I had visions of slippery little fetuses with legs nipping at my ankles running through my head.

And if that ain't a testament to honoring why I go to horror movies in the first place, nothing will ever be.

I'd been warned of the silliness there was beforehand - Superstar scientists with sunglasses! Barbie dolls! - so I was prepared, which might've skewed my appreciations unfairly. And there was a heckuva lot of paving across logic to get to the movie's points - these brilliant people behave dumbly an awful lot of the time, it's true - but I liked the slippery slope of sticky ethics it was messing with so much, and I trust Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody enough as actors, that it didn't bother me that much. I liked where it was going, and I had a whole lot of fun getting there.

And Dren is a whopping concoction of coolness.

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6 comments:

Izz Carrillo said...

Awesome! I will watch it as soon as I can...

dashdog said...

I've been waiting for this movie for a long time as well, so your review comes as a relief -- I'm going tomorrow night. Hope the over-showy TV commercials leave some surprises for me.

Anonymous said...

Alas, I saw it at an "industry screening" and by the last 30 minutes the audience was laughing consistently at everything. I said to my friend whom I had brought to this screening, if I were sitting in a theatre with a small audience, I bet I would have totally suspended disbelief and gone with the film. However, the derisive reaction of the audience totally pulled me out of the film. They just weren't a horror movie crowd.

Jason Adams said...

It's amazing how the crowd you see it with can completely change your viewing experience, anon. I was lucky that the audience I saw it with was totally into it, which I'm sure helped. They laughed at bits but I think the movie invites laughter at times; it's not humorless at all. That shot of Sarah Polley's face when she walks in on... it happening... that is a punchline and the camera treats it like one. A sick one, but a joke all the same.

And after that scene happened people in my audience actually left the theater, like 3 or 4 in different groups, because they were disgusted or disturbed or something, but I always love that shit, when a movie can piss people off like that.

Sibia Marie said...

I was spoiled on that moment by Adrien Brody himself during his interview on Jimmy Kimmel's show. They talked about it for a while in the interview. I wonder what I would have thought if I wasn't prepared for it beforehand...anyway, I was really into the crazy mother stuff with Polley's character and Dren.

Jason Adams said...

I knew about it beforehand too Sibia Marie, but I still thought it was still impressively fucked up. In theory it seemed fucked up, and I didn't think its presentation disappointed.

And yes to the Mommy issues stuff. I especially liked how vague everything was about Polley's mother's craziness, and that they refused us a flashback. I was dreading a flashback.