Before there was Jigsaw with his nifty [and brutal] mechanical traps in the Saw franchise, there was Cube, its rightful and infinitely superior precursor. I consider it one of the finest psychological thrillers; with a Kafkaesque setting – a complex maze containing deadly traps, strong plot and compelling performances. It rightly put debut screenwriter-director Vincenzo Natali in the spotlight, and achieved cult status [this is about the time where you click www.isohunt.com and commence torrent download]. Needless to say, I was more than excited [read: gushing like morbid schoolgirl] when I heard he was the man behind Splice, which also boasted of A-list and Oscar contending actors Adrien Brody [winner, Best Actor, The Pianist] and Sarah Polley [nominated for the screenplay of poignant drama Away from Her, also Polley’s directorial debut]. Though Brody seemed an odd choice for a sci-fi thriller slash horror, Polley’s no stranger to the horror genre: she kicked zombie ass in the 2004 remake of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Add to that a clever-if-tired premise [genetic manipulation, scientists playing God, or as I like to call it: 2010: A Frankenstein Odyssey], and Guillermo Del Toro as producer, and you’ve got all the makings of a horror classic, right?

Wrong.
The Plot, or Species meets [pick any] David Cronenberg Body Horror Flick meets Frankenstein – only with a Sexy Boris Karloff: Elsa and Clive [Sarah and Adrien], two rebellious genetic engineers at Nucleic Exchange Research and Development [‘NERD’, get it?], defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named "Dren" [spell it backwards, proceed to groan], the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant [think Eraserhead baby] into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera [think America’s Next Top Model contestant], who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.

In a nutshell, cautionary ‘don’t screw with Mother Nature’ tale turns bizarrely and inexplicably into ‘don’t screw with mother – or father’ pulp fiction. It’s the ultimate thinking man’s B-movie.

Solid acting, check. Brilliant use of CGI [especially given a mere 30 million production budget], check. It’s the unabashedly derivative script that’s the downer. I mean, the buildup was extraordinary, but I’d have liked to see less glaring loopholes and more serious commentary on the moral dilemmas faced by the two scientists, the corruption of science and the individual and the ‘perversion of one’s own moral fabric’, themes David Cronenberg has efficiently touched upon with B-movie élan. Instead, we see Elsa go all Rosemary’s Baby on us, providing her own genes to ‘create’ Dren [why? Apparently because her mother was a nut-job. ??@#!? My sentiments exactly], and later doting on the monster-child like a proud mommy, as she struggles to cope with the fact that being part scorpion, part amphibian, part bird, part rabbit, part Heidi Klum, Dren’s growing up to be quite the Venus Flytrap. Didn’t see that covered in a chapter of The Nursing Mother’s Companion, did’ja Elsa? To its credit, though, some of the best scenes of the film are where Elsa and Clive struggle with their possessiveness as parents versus their moral responsibility; there’s a fine sequence where an attempted murder leads to a rather startling discovery – but I won’t ruin that for you.

Another major plus point is the fact that Dren is an amazingly three-dimensional character; Delphine Chanéac is simultaneously terrifying, tragic and compassionate as the misunderstood humanoid[?] struggling to cope with a plethora of emotions. So far, so good. It’s the second half of the film where the plot makes a swift tangent from the robust to the ridiculous. First off: Dren’s a murderous carnivore: I mean, she eats a rabbit raw, and her ‘parents’ react as though she got a C in Algebra. "Bad, Dren!" I mean, this isn’t your regular case of baby-go-kaka on the carpet. Haven’t these guys seen The Omen? The Bad Seed? Then there’s the really insane bit: earlier on in the film, Clive detests Dren and wants to kill the creature – abomination of science and all that. Later on, though, because of no other motive except ‘boys will be boys’, as she grows into a breathtaking beautiful creature from Pandora [read Avatar minus blue paint], she arouses more than just his parental instincts. Needless to say, Elsa is horrified when she finds out. Unfortunately for the movie, so are audiences. Then there’s the horrid one-dimensional dialogue, generic to the hilt. "What’s the worst that could happen?" [She has a stinger in her tail, you idiots!] "This was never about science, was it?" [Really? What was your first clue?] Q: "What was that?" A: "A mistake." [Yeah, no sh**, Sherlock.] It’s a downward spiral from where the film resorts to the shock-element rather than spinning a traumatic psychological web for the audience; the film is relegated to Jeepers Creepers territory by its concluding reels. There’s a rather interesting twist midway into the movie I haven’t mentioned, but how I wish it was explored in a less schlocky manner.

Both Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley make the best of the material: it’s just that their characters seem half-baked. It’s Delphine Chanéac who steals the show, even when she’s reduced to playing cardboard cutout villain. Viewers should be warned that there is extremely disturbing content in the film – bestiality/incest – and they murder a poor kitty. Oh, and the M. Night Shyamalan inspired ‘twist’ at the end [which even your maasi will see coming from miles away] was so painfully obvious, I wanted to splice my wrists. No wait, I meant slice.

Watch the movie if you’re a lover of the genre: it’s a refreshing change from the pointless remakes/slasher flicks out there [I mean, a Nightmare on Elm Street remake? Why, Hollywood, why?], and for its obvious potential. I just wish the writers hadn’t lost the plot right about the time its two principal characters did.
Rated two-and-a-half stars out of five.
-- Osman Khalid Butt

*CINEMATIC SUICIDE
**FORGETTABLE
***WATCHABLE
****COLLECTIBLE *****AWARD-WORTHY