Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, this 2016 psychological thriller/horror movie about a serial killer with multiple personalities was an admirable success and received rave reviews. Story оf Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a victim of parental abuse in his past and terrifying villain suffering from dissociative identity disorder in his present, who has kidnapped three teenage girls is more than just a movie about serial killers who kidnap people to stream instead of gambling at BetAmo. It is a story about personality disorder and the different facets of human character.
The beginning of the movie is a set-up for a thriller: Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) has invited her classmates, including Marcia (Jessica Sula), and an outsider at her high school Casey Cook (Anya Taylor-Joy) to her birthday party.
The father of Claire is ready to ride Casey and Marcia to their homes, but the three teenage girls are kidnapped in the parking lot by a sinister stranger. Afterwards, three teenage girls find themselves locked in an underground bunker and have to face all of the 23 multiple personalities of their villainous captor. However, the 24 of them, the imminent Beast must be the worst one – other personalities of Kevin say to girls they are to be “sacred food” for him. Being in the bunker becomes a real hell for the girls, and they try to find a way out of it.
At the same time, Kevin Crumb lives his normal life, including attending therapy with Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), who suddenly starts to realize her patient behaves himself in a way she didn’t experience before, and it must be connected to his 24th hidden personality.
James McAvoy amazingly managed to portray personalities with absolutely different characters created by the imagination of the traumatized boy Kevin, from the nine-year-old reckless and trusting boy Hedwig to the psychopathic Patricia and Dennis, and, of course, the cruel Beast, a serial killer who has his own philosophy.
The handwriting of Shyamalan in directing is as always very subtle. The movie successfully balances on the edge of psychological thriller and horror, there are no frankly horror scenes in the movie, but the change of shots, details perfectly create a very oppressive atmosphere.
In general, the performance of all the actors is very convincing. Betty Buckley, who played Dr. Karen Fletcher, was able to stunningly portray the range of feelings that she experiences from the meeting with her patient from genuine joy to anxiety and horror. One can only imagine the horror of an empathic doctor who treats her patients in a special way.
As a noted psychologist, she believes people diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder like Kevin are kind of supernatural. She supports Kevin and one can only imagine her horror when the patient she trusted so much hides his most violent and creepy side from her and turns out to be a serial killer.
Casey Cook plays a crucial role in the movie. Unlike two other girls who grew up in a more prosperous atmosphere and know about maniacs only from movies, she was abused by her uncle and knows firsthand what it is to be near a rapist and maniac, a cruel beast, trying every day if not to outsmart him, then at least just to survive.
She has a very developed intuition, she is extremely cautious and knows how to collect herself in the most dangerous moment. If for the other hostages everything ended tragically, for her, who grew up and lived in an atmosphere of terrible violence, what happened was to some extent a deliverance and made her mobilize all her strength to fight back against her rapist uncle.
In some ways, it was her encounter with the mentally ill and dangerous Kevin that paradoxically became Casey’s salvation, so that she could realize the value of her life and heal. „Split“ is arguably one of the best films of N. Shyamalan, a suspenseful psychological thriller. You definitely need to watch it if you are a psychology-lover!
