Splice

'Nature's greatest miracle...is a mistake' is the tagline for Splice, a film about genetically creating a human-hybrid creature from human cells mixed with a variety of animals. Directed by Vincenzo Natali, this film explores the morality behind creating the creature.

There is a lot of emotional feelings towards the creature throughout the film. At the beginning, it was just an experiment and they will destroy it as soon as they have created it so no one will know about it. But once the creature has been 'born' the scientists start getting attached to it, more on the part of the woman Elsa who sees it as her 'child', which it technically is as she used part of her DNA to create the creature. NYT said 'The Cronenberg influence here is evident in Mr. Natali’s interest in the body and birth and in an initially subdued, near-narcoleptic atmosphere that helps build a nice sense of foreboding.' Elsa's husband Clive tries to kill the creature, which they name Dren, but later in the film, he too gets very attached to her. Film4 said 'As in all the best creature features, the creature itself - embodied extraordinarily by Delphine Chaneac and a panoply of weird CG enhancements - is utterly humanised, while the all-human characters are invested with some genuinely horrifying aberrations, so that we are never quite sure where to direct our sympathies or how to orient our moral judgements.'

Dren goes through accelerated growth of her body, but her mind is still that of a youngling. By the time she is a few days old, her body is already that of an adult but her mind is still a child's. This could be considered as the underlying theme of interfering with nature for our own scientific purposes, and in doing so we 'ruin' what we create as the life form doesn't experience life properly, and humans are unsure of how it will evolve and survive; and also if it will go through any sudden changes like Dren did when she turned from female to male.
Another theme that i think is in this film is that humans are afraid of nature and the way it's evolving, and they try to recreate a semblance of life that they could control but that life will escape. IMDB said 'Splice rises out of the gluttony of modern horror and science fiction films. It has the old school charm, and it uses that to its advantage to create a rather unique film for its time.'

I really enjoyed this film, and found the animation and CG effects worked well within the environment. I also liked the concept behind this film even if its probably never going to happen.

quotes: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1017460/

http://www.film4.com/reviews/2009/splice

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/movies/04splice.html