I first saw photos from Splice in February of this year and was immediately ready to see it. Cube director Vincenzo Natali has brought Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody into a world of genetic creature development that seems to have a lot of potential. The initial stills (some of which come from the clip below) showed a weird little creature that becomes something much larger and more dangerous. See the clip and read a bit of buzz from the Sitges Fest ‘09 after the break.

The basic plot rundown is below, and you can read that or skip if you wish to remain less potentially spoiled. (There’s nothing truly spoilery in either my words here or that synopsis, but if you just want to get a taste, skip right to the clip, which doesn’t give too much away.)

It’s easy to see how this could combine elements of Alien, Species and Mimic, but if it all works then I’ll take that. Basically, Polley and Brody play a husband and wife research team that grow fleshy little things by combining animal DNA; the idea is to extract valuable proteins and enzymes from the creations. But Polley’s character wants to add human DNA into the mix, after which things get weird.

Twitch called the film “a genre mash of science fiction and a young parenting drama,” and said “The center-piece of the picture, the combination of ‘girl-in-suit,’ make-up, and Greg Nicotero prosthetics takes the uncanny valley, razes it to the ground and rebuilds its central creature into something simply wonderful” but warns that “fans of balls out monster movies will be a bit baffled by the films deliberate pacing.” Fair enough. I’ll take the pacing, and in fact I’ll celebrate it. Give me more thoughtful, conceptually freakish monster movies any day.

Synopsis:

Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named Dren, the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.

We may see the film under the title Hybrid, and we may not see it at all — this could be one to watch for in your import DVD and On Demand browsing.