This week's "Splice" centers on two rebellious biochemists who create a new -- and dangerous -- organism by mixing animal and human DNA. This got us thinking about other movies of its ilk, and so we've collected a top 12 list of movies in which a scientific experiment goes terribly wrong, either for hilarious effect... or not.
Top 12 Movies: When Science Goes Wrong
12. "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (1989)
Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) is your average “nutty scientist,” working on a top secret machine which miniaturizes objects. When it unexpectedly starts working, his kids inadvertently become the guinea pigs, as they are shrunk down and throw out into the big, bad backyard.
This represents the don'ts on human cloning. When a man, Lincoln (Ewan McGregor) and a woman, Jordan (Scarlett Johansson), find out there are actually “harvested beings,” bred as insurance policies for their real-life human counterparts, they escape their utopian facility to find out the truth.
10. "Island of Dr. Moreau"" (1977 & 1996)
This cult classic is a precursor to “Splice,” as it were, about a mad scientist living on an island, whose experiments turning animals into strange- looking humans backfires. The 1977 version starred Burt Lancaster, but most will remember the 1996 remake with Marlon Brando as the insane doctor.
9. "Weird Science" (1985)
What do two teenage boys want the most in the world? The perfect woman, of course! So, budding mad scientists Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) and Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) create Lisa (Kelly LeBrock) — and proceed to have their world rocked, for better or worse.
The power of invisibility doesn't always work to your advantage. A group of scientists discover how to make people invisible, but their test subject (Kevin Bacon) becomes an insane killer who stalks them.
A scientific team receives a transmission detailing an alien DNA structure, along with instructions on how to splice it with human DNA. The result is Sil (Natasha Henstridge), a sensual but deadly creature who can change from a beautiful woman to reptile-like killing machine in the blink of an eye — and she's looking for someone to breed with.
6. "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" (1932)
Dr. Jekyll (Frederic March) experiments the good and evil in man and allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.
5. "The Nutty Professor" (1996)
And this is the funnier version of the Jekyl/Hyde story. First Jerry Lewis, then Eddie Murphy, star as a nerdy professor, desperate to be accepted, who takes a special chemical that turns him into the cooler but far more obnoxious Buddy Love.
4. "Spider-Man" Series (2002)
Being bitten by a genetically enhanced spider works out OK for Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), but not so much for Spidey's nemeses and their experiments gone awry, such as Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) turning into the Green Goblin or Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) turning into Doc Ock [pictured].
3. "Jurassic Park" (1993)
This represents the don'ts on dinosaur cloning. Even you find dinosaur DNA in a prehistoric mosquito and combine with frog DNA, making a theme park full of cloned dinosaurs just isn't a great idea, especially if you clone the dangerous kind.
This classic story started the whole scientific-experiment-gone-wrong scenario. Based on Mary Shelley timeless novel, an obsessed scientist (Colin Clive) believes he can reanimate life and so goes about assembling a living being from parts of exhumed corpses and bringing him to life with electricity. He succeeds — and the Monster (Boris Karloff) is born!
This is probably the best example of science gone wrong. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), a brilliant but eccentric scientist, builds a teleportation machine. But when he attempts to teleport himself, a fly enters one of the transmission booths, and Brundle suddenly finds he is a changed man. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
