Splice Pics

Splice is a 2009 Canadian-French science fiction horror film directed by Vincenzo Natali and starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. The story concerns experiments in genetic engineering being done by a young scientist couple who attempt to introduce human DNA into their work of splicing animal genes.

Genetic engineers Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) hope to achieve fame by successfully splicing together the DNA of different animals to create new hybrid animals for medical use. They have just created the second in a pair of hybrids; the new male specimen, Fred, is intended as a mate for the original specimen, a female called Ginger.

After their success, Clive and Elsa want to use human DNA to create a hybrid that could revolutionize science and medicine, but they are forbidden by the sponsoring company calling itself N.E.R.D. Pharmaceuticals (Nucleic Exchange Research and Development). Instead their department is to be re-organized to focus on finding and extracting certain key proteins from the creatures they have already created. Secretly, Clive and Elsa conduct their own private experiments at great risk to their careers, blending human DNA with that of other animals.

Although they initially plan on terminating the hybrid before it reaches full term, Elsa persuades Clive to let it continue as their own secret project. The hybrid appears deformed and aggressive when it stings Elsa several times just prior to "birth". Clive and Elsa believe they have killed the hybrid only to discover that the actual creature was hidden within a detachable soft outer shell.

After anesthetizing and examining the creature, they discover that she is aging at a vastly accelerated rate. Clive is still adamant that the creature should be killed, but Elsa convinces him that it is too late. She points out that since the hybrid will be dead soon anyway, they should take advantage of this unique opportunity to observe its complete life cycle.

As time passes the creature grows and learns at an astonishing rate and the two scientists discover that she is capable of breathing amphibiously and can live underwater too. Elsa eventually names the creature Dren (Delphine Chanéac) which is N.E.R.D. spelled backwards. Elsa refuses to let Clive refer to her as a "specimen".

Due to Dren's demands on their time, Elsa and Clive begin to neglect their work and fail to read the logs kept by the other lab technicians on the progress of their original hybrids, Fred and Ginger. At the highly publicized "unveiling" of the two specimens, instead of mating as expected, Fred and Ginger savagely fight each other to a very bloody demise, creating a public relations disaster for the N.E.R.D. company. It is subsequently discovered that the female hybrid Ginger had spontaneously changed to a male, but Elsa and Clive had failed to notice because their attention was so focused on caring for Dren.

Elsa forms a motherly bond with Dren. As their lab becomes more and more crowded, and after Dren attacks Clive's brother/fellow lab technician Gavin (Brandon McGibbon), they move Dren to Elsa's late mother's farm. The audience learns that Dren has become carnivorous as she attacks and consumes a rabbit near the farm.

As Dren grows into adolescence, she becomes moody and petulant. She becomes bored being locked up in the barn and wants to go outside, but Elsa and Clive refuse because letting her outside could reveal her existence to the world. Soon, Clive realizes that the human DNA used to make Dren was not from a "Jane Doe" as Elsa had told him, but from Elsa herself.

Eventually, Dren resentfully lashes out at Elsa by spitefully killing a pet cat and then assaulting Elsa as Dren suddenly develops retractable wings. Elsa reacts by reverting back to the role of dispassionate scientist. She ties Dren up, refuses to speak to her (referring to her only as "the specimen" again), and removing the stinger from her tail. She then uses the living tissue from the stinger part of the tail to finally isolate and synthesize the protein for which they had been searching.

Soon afterward, Dren seduces Clive. He initially refuses her overtures but they eventually make love, only to be interrupted by Elsa. Clive follows Elsa back to their apartment, and they have a heated argument in which Clive confronts her about having used her own DNA to create Dren. He accuses Elsa of