Splicing Out of His Cube: Bio-Horror's New King Speaks

The first time I ever spoke to Vincenzo Natali was after a Fangoria-hosted midnight screening of his Sundance hit Splice in a Greenwich Village theater.  It was close to 2 AM and I shouted out, "Who would win in a fight, [Splice's creature] Dren or Brundlefly?!?"

I could tell he was deeply touched.  He'd much rather you be reminded of David Cronenberg's emotionally draining, disgusting jump into the plasma pool of bio-horror The Fly rather than, say, Species.

Splice, like Natali's best known previous film, Cube, is a pure genre entertainment, to be sure, but both films aren't afraid to be philosophical and, darn it, intelligent.

I sat with Natali in a midtown conference room for a quick chat a few days later, where the two of us gushed our love of hard SF.  He was wearing a T-shirt with the X-Men's Cyclops in Japanese.  I can't wait for more movies from this guy.