Splice (2010)
Rating: 
I wouldn’t be surprised if Splice flew right under your radar. I’m too lazy to check the box office, but I doubt anybody saw it. And really, you haven’t missed much. Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play extremely unlikable scientists, jointly filling the role of Dr. Frankenstein in this 21st century update of the story in which the monster is a man-made genetic mashup. It’s unsurprising that the user comments on the IMDb show a split between users who loved it and those who hated it–it’s that kind of movie.
It should be said–before anything else–that the marketing for Splice created a false impression of what this film was all about–at least for me. I was absolutely sure this was some sort of horror film, when in fact, it’s really some sort of scattered meditation on parenthood…or what happens when deranged people have children. I don’t know. Almost as if the filmmakers knew it wasn’t working very well, the final ten minutes are straight horror. And that doesn’t work either.
Ultimately, my biggest problem with this film is that Sarah Polley’s character, especially, was so thoroughly distasteful. I just kept waiting for the part where she would die. Unfortunately, she never does.
I was disappointed. I wanted a scary movie about an evil mutant, and maybe that’s my own problem, but Splice was only ever mildly interesting on its own merits. It didn’t help either that I found the scientific content so questionable–especially the surprise reveal (which wasn’t surprising at all) in the ending scene, which would seem to fly in the face of all logic.
Quarantine (2008)
Rating:
Now this is a scary movie. This was the other “hand held camera/filmed in real time” film of 2008. You probably heard about Cloverfield, and you probably didn’t hear, or forgot, about Quarantine. In my opinion, Quarantine is the better film (though unsurprisingly, the IMDb disagrees with me), possibly because what it attempts is more modest.
In short, Quarantine is a zombie film. The marketing sort of suggested this without ever admitting it. The bulk of the film takes place within the claustrophobic confines of an apartment complex that has been quarantined by the CDC. So the terror of it isn’t merely the result of developments inside the building, but also the lethal measures employed by law enforcement outside.
Does it add anything new to the zombie genre? Possibly not, but here’s why it works: solid acting.
Every performance in this film is spot on, in my opinion. The director aims for extreme verisimilitude and captures it in a way that Cloverfield simply couldn’t, even to the point that the film starts out in an extremely mundane way, with a television personality just interviewing the firemen at a station she’s profiling–and this probably lasts for about 15 minutes. The mundaneness of these early scenes only makes what’s to come even more jarring.
This movie seriously creeped me out.
Apparently, Quarantine is an extremely close remake of a Spanish film called Rec that was released a year earlier. Cue the chorus of snobby Internet critics who will trip over each other to tell you how much better the original always is. Granted, I haven’t seen Rec, and perhaps it is the better film of the two, but whenever Hollywood decides to remake a foreign genre film, the response from bloggers and other amateur critics is frustratingly predictable. It typically involves righteous indignation that Hollywood dared to even make the attempt, but occasionally, it also allows some of the more douchey reviewers to be supercilious about stupid Americans who don’t like reading subtitles (and is it really so weird, anyway, that you’d rather be watching the scary stuff going on in a horror film than reading the subtitles and missing the action?).
Strangely, I’ve read a few complaints about what I considered to be one of the best bits in Quaratine (I won’t spoil it, but it involves the camera man killing one of the zombies). The aftermath of that action, in particular, was a highlight for me for being well acted and realistic, but apparently, the scene is one of the few that wasn’t in Rec, so it’s also one of the few things about which people feel comfortable being critical.
I’ve also seen complaints about how frantic the lead actress goes in later scenes. I had absolutely no problem with that. If I were in that situation, I’d literally be shitting bricks.
Okay, enough of that. Let me comment upon this Entertainment Weekly list of underrated films.
Breakdown. I respect this film. In a way, this is one of the best thrillers I’ve ever seen. Also, it stars my boy Kurt Russell. That said, I haven’t seen it in 13 years.
Timecop. Total guilty pleasure, but at the same time, it’s really not too bad depending upon your expectations. I don’t know if it holds up as well as the author claims, but it’s enjoyable, and Van Damme isn’t terrible.
Breach. Haven’t seen it. I like Chris Cooper, though.
Prime. I’d totally forgotten about this one. Haven’t seen it.
Definitely, Maybe. Haven’t seen it. Doubt I’m really the target audience.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Sucked. Even putting aside how schizophrenic this movie felt, it just wasn’t very good. The characters were all unlikable, and it was a snoozer. Kubrick and Spielberg–two great tastes that don’t taste great together.
Frailty. Huh? Never heard of it.
Idiocracy. I’ve only caught moments of this on Comedy Central, but I’ve seen enough to be able to say that while this may have some light laughs, calling it an underrated gem is probably going about five steps too far.
Far and Away. Haven’t seen it.
Death to Smoochy. Sorry, it sucked.
Galaxy Quest. I’m not sure I’d say this is underrated, but it is a gem. Great cast, and it’s a damn fun film.
Tommy Boy. This is just a cult film, so I’m not certain it’s technically correct to suggest this might be underrated. It’s stupid, but it also brings the laughs and I’ve seen it a bunch of times, so I’m not going to disrespect it. Chris Farley was a funny guy.
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I’m pretty sure Splice came out around the same time as that Human Centipede movie, so my brain kind of lumped them together as one film. By the time I realized they weren’t the same thing, it was too late and I had no interest. Your review certainly isn’t doing much to change my mind. And I think I maybe saw an add for Quarantine, but then I forgot about it and I don’t even know if it came out near me. Maybe I’ll look into it.
As for this list of “underrated films,” it’s pretty dumb. This just seems like a list of completely random movies that the writer liked it and wanted to talk about. Just because a film didn’t do Avatar like numbers at the box office, it doesn’t make it underrated. Timecop, for example, is perfectly rated. If anything, it’s overrated, because people are still talking about it even though it’s actually a pretty bad movie. If it seems to hold up today, that’s only because it’s just as bad now as it was then.
Breakdown was good, but as you said, I haven’t cared to rewatch it since it first came out.
Breach was one of the most boring movies I’ve ever seen. Not a good film. This film’s failure at the box office was well deserved.
Prime? What is that? A movie about Optimus Prime? How did I miss that?
Definitely Maybe I’m gonna skip this one. I love my boy Berg, but I’ll wait for Green Lantern.
A.I., again, is overrated. If even one person on the planet says it was good, it’s overrated. Sucked! When I mention that I disliked this movie, most people talk about the ending and say that I just didn’t get it. Oh, I hated this movie about an hour before it ended. The ending wasn’t the problem. The entire movie was the problem.
Frailty: Never heard of it.
Idiocracy kept me laughing, but not as much as you’d want. It was funny, but uneven and ultimately unsatisfying. Even the jokes that worked were way too esoteric and dark for it to achieve any real success at the box office. It’s things like this that annoy me. This film wasn’t dumped into the theaters unceremoniously by a studio that wanted it to fail. It was released in the most cost-effective way possible by a studio that knew they had big dudd on their hands.
Far and Away? My sister loves this, but I hardly remember it. I seem to recall it being popular when I was a kid. Tom Cruise has many films that are better and more underrated than this one. I bet this film was the Gigli of its time.
I never saw Death to Smoochy, but I’ve never met anybody who didn’t hate it. A happy day for America was when the movie-going public finally said no to Edward Norton. He’s a fine actor who is still allowed to make movies, but his brief time as a leading man mercifully came to an end after this died at the box office. I might get into trouble for that statement, but I’m fine with that.
Galaxy Quest is a huge cult favorite that scored big with its intended audience. Hardly underrated.
Ditto for Tommy Boy. It’s hard to call a movie underrated when, 15 years later, it’s still on TNT and TBS every god damned weekend. Everybody has seen Tommy Boy and everybody loves Tommy Boy. Maybe it didn’t make money at the box office, but so what? It’s a popular, beloved movie.
Dumb list.
I think there was probably a good idea somewhere in Splice, but I had trouble with the film, because I was supposed to be able to empathize with the monster (Dren), but the movie didn’t do much to make me appreciate the way the Dren perceived the world. It was too much about the scientist characters.
Though it was always going to be difficult to get to me to accept that you could just mix up human DNA with a bunch of animal DNA and get a viable lifeform that’s mostly human, except for a bunch of contrived adaptations.
right on with quarantine. i agree with all you’ve said. Jennifer Carpenter was completely believable, i thought, and has done a few more scenes showing that panicky kind of loss of control in Dexter, and quite well, I think. quarantine scared me. cloverfield didn’t it just gave me a large case of the spins, which = not a good time.
Breakdown was also disturbing, i agree.
You know the funny thing about Quarantine? Even the semi-literate cretins on YouTube hate it for being a remake of Rec.
Really, what’s the big deal? If you think it’s a bad movie, fine. But if you just think it’s not as good as the original, what’s the point of getting so outraged about it? Does the remake do some injustice to the original by existing?
I’m really curious now about Rec, because I genuinely thought that Quarantine was a good film, so it’s difficult to imagine that the original was so much better that it would make me want to go out on the Internet and spread my hate for the filmmakers behind the remake.
[...] require a classically trained actor to play grizzled, but then again, a week ago, I watched Splice—in which Brody played a spineless hipster scientist—and the difference between that [...]
I completely forgot you had reviewed this movie. Had I remembered, I would’ve done this remake instead of the original, just out of loyalty to you. Was that gay?
Rec was great and very scary… but I bet Quarantine was probably more scary, if only because it was in English. That isn’t to say that foreign films aren’t scary, just that it’s easier to get immersed in a film (and thus, more susceptible to being scared) when you aren’t reading subtitles.
Nah, that doesn’t make you gay. Having sex with me is what makes you gay.
Damn, I can’t believe I wrote this almost a year ago. That’s another year of my life gone.
It’s not even the sex that makes us gay. It’s the cuddling we do afterward.