Splice

Clive (Adrien Brody) & Elsa (Sarah Polley) are scientist superstars, famous for splicing DNA fro different animals to create bizarre hybrids. They are i love with each other as they are with their work.And they want to go to the next step: splice Human DNA. But when their corporate financiers refuse, they decide to experiment in secrete. The result is DREN: an amazing creature whose rapid life cycle takes her from baby to adult in a matter of months. as Clive & Elsa struggle to keep Dren a secrete, their connection to their creation evolves from scientific to personal. Ultimately, Dren exceeds the couples wildest dreams- & their most terrifying nightmares.

I will get this out there first, I've enjoyed the hell out of Vincenzo Natali's other films. Cube being one of the best Sci-Fi/Horror hybrids I've seen in many a moon, Cypher was a well thought out but not quite well executed film but still was a good time waster & Nothing was in my top 10 films of 2003, I enjoyed it that much. So when I heard he was taking on a film that had a very Cronenberg of the 80's vibe, I was stoked to say the least.
I can now say it was Cronenberg light & more akin to Scanner's 2 & 3 than to Cronenberg's The Fly, not that that's a bad thing(I love those Scanner's sequels). There was allot of hyperbole surrounding this film which in it's own right did not deserve. People comparing it to Cronenberg in the first place had set the bar at atmospheric heights it could never achieve, & I'll admit it got me pumped to see it. Second, Guillermo del Toro jumped on board as an executive producer which coming off his amazing film Pan's Labyrinth & adding his name to a very creepy Spanish film called El orfanato(The Orphanage) got all the horror fandom frothing at their mouths. Throw in some fairly big (by Canadian standards) named stars & this film looked to be a huge success..............NOPE.
My biggest problem is Natali IMO can't handle a movie with a budget over 5 million. Cube cost 500,000, great film. Nothing cost 2 million(I've heard) great film. Cypher cost nearly 8 million with so-so results & now Splice cost in the area of 26 million with so-so results, I know it's not entirely Natali's fault, with bigger budgets comes allot of unwanted baggage in the ways of people telling you what to do & how to spend your dough but it seems other directors handle the stress better than Natali. These bigger budgeted films seem rushed & are Hodge-podged together to appease the money people. That being said for a movie that cost 26 million it is quite cheep in today's market when even TV shows are approaching the high single digit millions per episode & are less satisfying than this film (Dexter season 5 anyone!!!!!) I just wish Natali had the weight of say Cronenberg in order to say "Relax I know what I'm doing & leave me alone", if that were the case then Splice would have been the second coming because all the elements were there. Instead we end up with The Fly 2, which is just fine if your a trash film fan like myself but to most folks it was utter garbage.