If you ever need evidence that the movies influence behavior, drop by my neighborhood: ever since “Splice” opened at the box office, the kids around town have been up in their labs performing complicated and dangerous genetic experiments. There are half-human creatures zipping all over the place. We’re considering a petition, or maybe changing the sign on the front door to read “NO SOLICITORS OR VIOLENT GENOME CREATURES.”
To get my head around all this genetic activity, I decided to check out the Wikipedia article for “Splice”. That way I could figure out exactly what I was rooting against. And did I ever find that:
When Dren starts getting sick, Clive suggests putting her in a cold bath to keep her temperature down. Dren starts convulsing and Clive sees his opportunity to fix his mistake. He tries to drown Dren and forces her to stay underwater, hoping that she’ll drown. Unfortunately, the growths turn out to be water-based lungs, which allow her to breathe underwater and necessity her staying near water environments.
Often when people try to drown someone, they actually don’t hope the victim will drown. In this case, Clive does want her to drown when he drowns her. An important clarification, to be sure.
The recap also mentions a scene that encapsulates pretty much everything I dislike about modern movies (SPOILER ALERT): “[Dren] kisses him and Clive pushes her away telling her not to. But she’s persistent and soon Clive can’t control himself. He has sex with Dren.” Who, exactly, is supposed to take this seriously, that someone would look at this frightening, malformed creature and say, “Yeah, I’d hit that”? But enough about Clive.
