#2
Splice
Failure Rating: 40 acres of failure, and then you get raped by a mule.
Splice is the most recent addition to this list. It's so recent that there's a remote possibility that you may still find it in theatres if you care to go looking. Don't ask for a ticket, though; saying the words "I'd like to pay money to see the movie
Splice" has been known to trigger headache, vomiting, and rectal prolapse; three things guaranteed to ruin your evening, believe you me. Instead, if you must gaze upon this horror, buy a ticket to something innocuous and then just follow your nose once you're inside;
Splice will always be playing in the cinema that smells vaguely of death. Officially it's an unsolved mystery why film projectionists continually hang themselves during screenings of
Splice; officially there's no explanation for why 40% of audience members murdered their spouses after test screenings. Unofficially, the director has taken to sleeping with a loaded gun and a silver crucifix to ward off the evil he unleashed by making this movie, and sources have confirmed that stars Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley are definitely no longer in possession of their souls (though I question whether they ever had souls in the first place).
Splice fails and offends in so many directions at once that it's impossible to list them all in one review. As a science fiction movie,
Splice is the worst I've ever seen, and I've seen
Star Trek 5.
Splice is the most boring science fiction film ever, and that includes
Contact. As a horror film,
Splice is more sleep-inducing than
Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's got more unintentional humour than
Troll 2. Splice has the worst acting ever captured on film, and I've seen
Jennifer's Body (I do love Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox, but they couldn't even convincingly lust after
each other, and everyone in the world lusts after those two).
Splice is less suspenseful than an episode of
Glee; less realistic than an episode of
Deep Space Nine; and contains more nightmare-inducing depictions of alien sex than the
entire nation of Japan.
Why did I see this garbage? Well, here's the trailer:
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pzPhtK7AYBw&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pzPhtK7AYBw&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
(or if that didn't work, here's the link...fuck the internets):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzPhtK7AYBw&feature=channel
Holy shit, right? Looks scary as hell. Notice how we don't actually get to see that much of the monster. But that's probably just because it's
too scary to be shown to TV audiences, right? No way could they be using cheap editing tricks to make the film seem like a terrifying action-horror, when it's really a boring psychological thriller with bland characters, little action, and a disturbing amount of weird, pseudo-incestusous alien sex, right?
Well, to clarify this, here's a scene from the actual film...
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hY-U6ncHOEk&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hY-U6ncHOEk&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY-U6ncHOEk
Notice two things: first of all, the 'monster' is not exactly what the trailer led us to believe, is it? Instead of an alien zombie-beast, this looks more like Jar Jar Binks' hot cousin. I would love to have been a fly on the wall as the director tried to explain his vision to the effects supervisor:
"I want her scary and alien-looking. I want her to have a giant stinger on the end of her tail, like a scorpion, and razor sharp teeth."
"Giant stinger, razor sharp fangs, I think I can cook something up."
"Good, good. But also...I want her to be hot, you know?"
"...You, uh...you want her to be hot?"
"Yeah, you know, like the chick from Species. Men have to want to fuck this creature; that's what puts asses in seats."
"So you mean she should basically look like a human woman, with the alien attributes hidden."
"No, no, she can't look human at all. I want her to be a real weird-looking horror-beast. This is scary shit."
"But Vinny, I don't think most men want to have sex with a weird, alien-looking creature who looks like it's about to kill them."
"What are you, gay?"
Also, this scene illustrates a common tactic the director uses to try to inject some false tension into this mess. Sometimes this requires no real action whatsoever; they just cut to the creature and play scary music. When something does happen, it mostly consists of cringe-worthy dialogue being broken up by moments of pseudo-action, where it seems like one of the characters might be in jeopardy for a moment, but then the tension is effortlessly resolved five seconds later. For instance, in the above scene, Sarah Polley hits Lady Jar-Jar over the head with a shovel before she can get away. End scene.
Wait, you ask, in this so-called horror film, an action sequence consists of a nubile fetus-with-tits stealing a key and getting whaled on by Sarah Polley? Yep, that's pretty much how it works. During 95% of the movie, Sarah and Adrian aren't so much fighting for their lives as they are physically and psychologically torturing a little girl.
Splice is mostly about how these two robotic, emotionless humans cope with raising a daughter who's 'different.' Sort of like
Mommie Dearest meets
Alien Ressurection. Except not nearly as cool or as campy as that sounds. And I haven't even talked about the sex part yet.
Have you ever wanted to watch Sarah Polley being raped by her own alien daughter/son? What, I couldn't hear you, there was too much screaming at your end. No? Then you probably shouldn't watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct_oa_4h62M
At this point, Adrian has already fucked his alien daughter/son, and she's already watched Sarah and Adrian fuck on a couch (for the sake of your sanity, do not ever watch a Sarah Polly sex scene; I swear to god, at the moment of orgasm, you can see the souls of all the men she's devoured writhing in agony behind her eyes).
<a href="http://photobucket.com/images/sarah%20polley" target="_blank"><img src="http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/thorne132006/001/SarahPolley1.jpg" border="0" alt="Sarah Polley Pictures, Images and Photos"/></a>
"Oh yes. Give it to me."
Do not see this movie. I'm not even joking with you now. Do not see this movie, or I'm not responsible for the consequences.
What are you doing? Are you looking up showtimes? C'mon, seriously...okay, fine. Fuck you anyway. I never liked you. Everyone else is going to heed my advice. You just watch. You're about to look very foolish.
