Movie Review: 'Splice' is old-fashioned creature-feature that wants to gross you out

2.5 stars out of 4

An enduring lesson one takes from "Splice" is that you should never let the frontiers of human knowledge be pushed by scientists who drive an AMC Gremlin and wear ironic T-shirts.

That's made alarmingly, squirmingly clear in this creepy-crawly horror film, which maintains a straight-faced solemnity even as it gets increasingly, incredibly ridiculous (even deliberately comic).

All of which leads to a scene of such surpassing nuttiness that you'll be hearing people guffawing about it for weeks.

I saw "Splice" with a handful of other critics, a serious bunch of professionals. A fine bunch of people. However, I suspect "Splice" would be a lot more fun with a full house of fans. Just hold the nachos and Gummi treats, because your stomach will be doing flips.

Serious thespians Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, each with serious lab pallor, are geneticists named Clive and Elsa, which are not the only "Frankenstein" references on hand here.

In their spare time, in a spare room that somehow remains unknown to the other workers at their lab, they splice together human and animal DNA - just to see what happens.

What they create - it's alive! - is a creepy odd creature you've probably already seen in the trailers. Clive wants to destroy it: Enough's enough, he says.

But Elsa, finding maternal instincts long hidden, babies the creature, reads to it, cuddles it, and names it Dren (backwards for Nerd, which is what it says on one of Elsa's ironic T-shirts).

Dren kind of looks like a seal at first, but it grows up, at super speed, into a foxy (at least to Clive's eyes) woman-creature who has animal instincts and human urges.

She's given compelling life by actress Delphine Chaneac. With a huge assist by "Splice's" team of creature-effects people - really, their work is terrific - hers is a far better performance than that of her bigger co-stars.

Clive and Elsa try to hide Dren in a barn next to a scary house out in the barren, freezing countryside. But really: How are you going to keep a genetically engineered human/animal on the farm once she/he/it's seen the great outdoors?

For a couple of brilliant scientists, they're real dolts.

Director Vincenzo Natali ("Cube") makes sure "Splice" stays unsettling, often verging into David Cronenberg territory. It's often ridiculous, sure, but he gets great mileage out of paranoia-inducing camera angles and gross and slimy creatures, complete with squishy sound effects.

He makes no pretensions about it: Despite its high-tech gloss and a few nods to questions of scientific ethics, "Splice" is really an old-fashioned creature-feature that wants to gross you out. And sometimes that's just what's needed.

1 hour, 47 minutes. R. Sex, nudity, profanity, scientific stupidity.