One of the most successful horror movies of the last decade has just come to Netflix this month, allowing a whole new audience to experience the world of M. Night Shyamalan’s Split. Having stayed away from horror for over a decade, the director cemented his return to form in the mid-2010s with this inventive horror thriller with superb performances from stars James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as a link to the filmmaker’s past.
‘Split’ Sees Three Girls Trapped by a Nightmarish Villain
The film stars Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke, a withdrawn but resourceful teenager from just outside of Philadelphia who is kidnapped alongside two classmates while waiting to be driven home from a birthday party. Their kidnapper is Kevin Wendell Crumb (McAvoy), a man revealed to have a mind inhabited by 23 separate personalities, who imprisons the trio in an underground facility. As concerns grow that a dangerous 24th personality, “The Beast,” may emerge to wreak havoc, Casey draws upon her own experience to fight for her escape.
Written and directed by Shyamalan, the film was his follow-up to 2015’s The Visit, a well-received horror movie that saw the director make something of a creative comeback following poorly-received forays into other genres such as sci-fi (2013’s After Earth) and action (2010’s The Last Airbender). He was also able to call upon a terrific cast, with the film’s leads both bringing something different to the table.
James McAvoy Displays His Range While Taylor-Joy Becomes a Memorable Final Girl
It’s hard enough to create one memorable horror monster, but Scottish star McAvoy had to create 24. The role involved morphing his voice, mannerisms, and physical movements to reflect which personality had “control” at that particular time, before portraying “The Beast” in a way that satisfyingly paid off the build the script gives him. Incredibly, the actor only had a very short time to prepare for the role, replacing original star Joaquin Phoenix, who left the project just a few weeks before filming. This makes his performance doubly impressive, as it feels like the part was always meant for him.
For many co-stars, it might be tricky to not disappear in the shadow of such a showy lead, but Taylor-Joy’s strength is in giving Casey patience. A ‘Final Girl’ with a painful past and a reason for being cautious, she enters this nightmarish scenario with the experience of a survivor. Using her own personal demons to deal with the ones that are keeping her captive, it’s an interesting portrayal of trauma as more than tragic, and survival as empowering. Having made her breakthrough in Robert Eggers’ seminal The Witch, she knows the key to an engaging horror performance is in psychology as well as jump scares.
‘Split’ Was a Stealth Sequel to This 2000 Hit
Split was presented as a standalone story, but in one sensational final moment, it’s revealed to have a connection to one of M. Night Shyamalan’s biggest movies. The final scene shows an ordinary-looking diner, summing up the events of the movie and referring to McAvoy’s character as “The Horde.” A waitress recalls that, years ago, there was another criminal who was given a nickname by the media. Struggling to recall it, a diner patron behind her utters, “Mr. Glass.” The man is revealed to be David Dunn, Bruce Willis’ character from Unbreakable, making Split a “stealth sequel” to the 2000 movie.
The surprise echoes the director’s early days in the industry, when films such as his breakthrough The Sixth Sense and Signs had big plot twists that shocked audiences and made those films massive box office successes. It brought the new film into familiar territory, making McAvoy’s character a supervillain comparable to Dunn’s superhero, The Overseer, and flipping the context of the movie at the last moment so that the audience can see it in an entirely new light, as well as teasing a future for the characters of Split.
The pair would meet again, alongside the villain of Unbreakable, Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), in the crossover movie Glass, which would conclude the trilogy of films. However, Split remains the most audacious of the three movies, thanks to one of McAvoy’s most unsettling and unpredictable performances. As with everything Shyamalan has done in his career, the movie takes on familiar tropes of the horror genre and gives them a whole new meaning. Even with the rise of elevated horror in the past decade, setting a higher standard for scary movies, it remains a thrilling and surprising experience.
- Release Date
-
January 19, 2017
- Runtime
-
117 minutes
