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        There is but one saving grace to not having cable these days and that is the simple fact that I am not inundated day after day---more like minute after minute---with a plethora of meuvie previews alerting me as to what is coming out the following or in the case of a “big meuvie” preview, what month it will be coming out (why must they always “preview” months in advance? Bah!). Seeing the same trailer over and over again can only lead to the inevitable: the meuvie I had been dying to see has been “trampled to death”.
            A perfect example of this is Sherlock Holmes.
           Now it’s not that I was dying to see this meuvie in any way, shape, or form but at the time it was being released into theaters that happened to coincide with when I was having a chunk of time off from work and would going to stay at my parents house during the holiday season, and seeing a meuvie such as Sherlock Holmes on the big seemed to me like the perfect Daddy/Daughter outing to get out us out of the house and away from the Christmas cookies. A mere two days before it’s Christmas Day release, I happened to be spending the night with my Mom playing a rousing game of Yahtzee with MTV on in the background for some good ol’ fashioned trash television giggles, the problem was every time I glanced up at the television there was a trailer for Sherlock Holmes. I thought it was weird, and even a bit annoying, and I didn’t really pay it too much mind until I noticed that it wasn’t just one or two previews every hour, the trailer was the ONLY commercial they showed ALL NIGHT! I become so disgusted with this horrible marketing strategy that I vowed to NEVER see Sherlock Holmes as long as I lived.
                As a devout lover of meuvies and film, one would probably assume that I would love it if I could do my own programming and show trailers day in and day out, but the truth of the matter is is that it completely ruins it for me. And as a new rule to myself, even though I don’t have cable, I will still not use even the internet to view a trailer for something I want to see super duper badly. This can lead to some “predicaments” when I have absolutely no idea when things are being released, but with the studios pushing certain “must sees” back constantly I don’t feel all that badly about it.
                What this little story was leading up to was the fact that months ago I heard of the meuvie Splice and was very excited at the prospect of seeing a meuvie with both Sarah Polley (she a fabulous director too, check out Away From Her!) who I absolutely adore and the ever so fabulous Mr. Adrian Brody, and it wasn’t just that they were co-stars in any ol’ meuvie, it was a horror meuvie to boot! But as the months went on and I didn’t really read anything else about it I kind of forgot and because I hadn’t been inundated with the trailer for it I was very excited to get a call from my friend asking if I had any interest in “seeing this movie called Splice when it comes out in a couple weeks?”.
                So Splice… how does one even begin to describe a meuvie such as this? Sure it’s a horror meuvie, but it’s also a weird take on parenting and what baggage parents may bring to the table…
                Clive and Elsa (hello Frankenstein references!) are two ultra-cool scientists which head up a team for the company N.E.R.D who are experimenting with “splicing” different species’ DNA together to come up with certain body chemicals that will be helpful in medicines and food and what not. After they successfully splice together these two VERY phallic looking creatures (Fred and Ginger, respectively) they go to their boss with the idea of throwing a little human DNA in the mix which turns out would be vital in curing diseases such as Alzheimer’s and ever certain types of Cancer, much to the disappointment of our two scientists, she turns them down and tells them they need to throw their everything into the project at hand and that is the end of it. Clive and Elsa go back to their lab thoroughly disheartened but have the wacky idea to give it a go anyway just to see if it’s even remotely doable, after trying for what seems to be hours upon hours they finally get the process to work and over the next however many days and months they are secretly incubating this… thing in a sealed off lab, away from their fellow scientists. The day finally comes when the “egg” hatches and seemingly all hell breaks loose; not only is it months early but there is also a good chance it could die from a myriad of other complications… including the fact that our dear old Clive never wanted this baby---er, experiment to even happen.
                What has come out of the incubation sack/pod/whatever is yet another extremely phallic creature which soon begins growing at a very rapid rate and since it has been spliced with human DNA, takes on an extremely childlike appearance. Instead of treating this creature as the experiment and specimen it was meant to be, Elsa takes over the role of its mother, dressing it in little girl dresses, supplying it with various toys and attention galore. Clive participates in everything to a certain degree, but is so freaked out by what is going on he’s more worried about the ramifications of what would happen to them if they were ever found out. Eventually Elsa decides it’s only right to give the creature (who is female, by the way) a name and comes up with “Dren”, nerd spelled backwards.
                So far I seem to have painted a picture where everything is somewhat peach keen, but that is far from the truth. Dren is equipped with a rather long tail that when upset produces what can only be assumed to be a lethal spike; and let’s not even talk about how they discovered that she had gills!
                Time goes on and Dren continues growing and by the end of the meuvie I would have to guesstimate that she was probably considered to be 16-18 years old and is thusly being raised as a teenager somewhat, even though you can tell that Elsa still wishes she were her little girl and treats her as such which leads to Dren gravitating more towards her “father”, Clive.
                I’m going to stop with the synopsis there because there is no way I can possibly think of giving away anymore and I have also purposely left out the amazingly fucked up everything that occurs in the last 3o minutes.
                I have to say that going into this meuvie I had no real expectations because I was lucky enough not to have seen the entire plot given away for me in a minute long clip on the television and I was really quite pleased with that. I consider this to be a somewhat fresh-ish and original idea, I can understand though that some could easily and at a glance make slight comparisons to a meuvie such as Species but when you factor in the simple fact that this a actually a meuvie on first time parents, that goes out the window. I definitely wouldn’t say this is a meuvie for everyone, perhaps it’s being marketed as such but it’s much too out there for the normal meuvie going public.
                I really hope that Splice sticks around in theaters for a bit and perhaps makes it around to more theaters (I had heard it was a semi-limited release) because it’s nice knowing that a meuvie as smart, disturbing, and exciting is out there in the world and not collecting dust on some studios shelf.