Fans of movies on Netflix can't stop talking about Splice — this 2009 sci-fi horror movie was recently added to the platform in the US, and fans are finding its content as shocking as the themes it explores.
Slick tells the tale of two genetic engineers who conduct a secret project to create a hybrid human-animal, and they're surprisingly successful at this endeavor, which brings many unintended consequences.
Starring in the movie is Adrien Brody, who was already huge at the time of the movie's release for roles like in The Pianist, The Village, King Kong, King of the Hill and The Darjeeling Limited, and Splice was also a big project for Delphine Chanéac, who played the monster.
For the other main character, Sarah Polley, Splice ended up being her penultimate acting role, with 2010's Trigger being her last major acting credit. That's not because Polley gave up on movies, however — in fact, she's now even more successful in another field.
Sarah Polley has written and directed several movies since Splice, but the most recent is her biggest so far, and in fact, featured many times during the 95th Academy Awards ceremony in early 2023.
This movie is Women Talking, about a group of Mennonite women deciding what to do about the abusive men of the community. The movie was nominated for Best Picture (ultimately losing to Everything Everywhere All At Once) but it was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and won, beating the likes of Top Gun: Maverick, Glass Onion and All Quiet on the Western Front.
These are two very different movies — we don't recommend a Splice and Women Talking double bill — but you can certainly see similar themes in both.
If you tuned into Splice hearing about the conversation around the gory horror flick, there's a good chance that you didn't recognize the female lead as someone who'd be an Academy Award-winning screenwriter over a decade later. It just goes to show what can happen in 14 years!
