Friday, October 22, 2010

"To a new world of Gods and monsters..." and genetic gender-bending wife swapping??

Splice. (Vincenz Natali)

A nicely sinister title sequence gives way to a rather flatly executed but fairly intriguing story of brilliant genetic engineers, in the age-old tradition of playing God. Who are they kidding??
Never mind the fact that we all know such ideas are ALWAYS doomed to end in the death and/or mutilation of all around but I had a real problem in believing such incredibly stupid people as these two could ever EVER in the imagination of even the most demented chimpanzee ever really be considered brilliant?? Maybe if brilliant equals behaving like a confused and concussed five year old, who after falling down a particularly long flight of stairs and banging his head on every stair on the way down, then carries on chasing the big red shiny balloon going “lalalalalala..lah!” because it’s soooo pretty.
And, as the film progressed (nay, descended) on it’s demented way, they plummet to new-found depths of utter ineptitude and crassness. Maybe they just got bored of inserting marbles up there nostrils when they realised it wasn’t going to come out of one of their lugholes and only made their brain itch? Come to think of it, mine was beginning to feel scratchy.

I could be here all day making mealy-mouthed pot-shots at this totally bonkers ‘film’ but I think I would give myself a migraine (how long have you got?).
I will admit that I haven’t laughed in the cinema this much in a long time (who’d have thought rape, child-abuse, pissed-off hormonal turd-things in a tank and Adrien Brody’s cum face could be so funny??). But I think it would be unfair to say that all the laughs were unintentional and a touch mean-spirited to ignore that the makers had imagination and chutzpah to spare – at least caring enough to be daring and original, not to mention still appealing to the cinephile with the many references to the classics.
However, by the time of it’s ludicrous and protracted finale, a tiny part of me was dying inside and I was beginning to feel my soul being sucked right out of my arse. And as I groaned at its sphincter-squeezing epilogue (consoling myself with the fact that most of the cast were dead) I began to wonder if self-harming was so bad after all.
The audience I saw it with howled throughout and and were enjoying it as much as I dared to admit. But as we sheepishly filed out of the cinema, our mutual bemusement and deep shame was most palpable. I for one felt more than a little defiled as I wondered if I would ever be able to erase the images in my head of the most excruciating ‘sex’ scenes ever put onscreen (and I thought Elizabeth Berkley, thrashing about like a harpooned dolphin in a jacuzzi with Kyle MacLachlan was the pinnacle!)

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