This is what powers The Omen franchise, with its tale of Damien the killer child. This number of the beast (“the number of a man”, the Bible says) has probably caused more terror through the ages than any horror story could. They’re dread, devilish creatures that, significantly, are referred to by number. In the Bible, Revelation 13 talks of a monstrous beast (well, two of them) rising out of the ocean. Most symbolically, we finally learn that Kevin lives in the Zoo: he is surrounded, in fact, by animal nature and the most basic of needs – to survive at all costs. ![]() Hence we see The Beast protecting the Horde from ridicule and hurt we also see him literally devouring two of the kidnapped girls. The most primitive part of our brains isn’t concerned with moral concepts like good or evil, but with self preservation. There’s also a sense that The Beast represents the animal nature all humans have within them (see also The Chimp Paradox). In fact, this is how Casey escapes – because The Beast recognises their shared experience through her scars. This is another connection between The Beast and Casey: both are hunters, and both are survivors of abuse. This is brought to the foreground in The Beast’s mission: he destroys the pure (people who have never suffered), and saves ‘the torn’. Rather than being a purely evil figure, it’s possible to view The Beast – along with the rest of the Horde – as a response to Kevin’s childhood trauma. The film suggests Kevin’s multiple personalities came about as a reaction to child abuse, a means of protecting him from his mother. Others, however, are born different, and learn to mask their abilities. “This inhuman place makes human monsters” Stephen King, The ShiningĪre superheroes (and villains) born that way? Comic book characters often gain their powers as a reaction to something, i.e., insect bites or radiation. The final scenes complete this mirroring, in which Casey runs from The Beast, while also hunting him with a shotgun. When the other girls want to fight back against their kidnappers, Casey draws on her hunting experience: she says they should wait and watch (exactly as her father taught her when tracking animals). ![]() We learn through flashbacks that Casey (the outsider among the three girls) learned to hunt as a child. Hedwig presents as an adorable little boy, yet leads Casey on a stunningly cruel goose chase regarding a bedroom window.Īs another example of doubling, however – where themes and characters mirror each other – The Beast isn’t the only hunter in Split. Dennis finds ways to get the girls to remove their clothes, and forces Marcia to dance for him. While some of Kevin’s personalities are kinder to the girls, collectively they toy with them the way a cat plays with its food. ![]() The Horde kidnaps them in preparation for the arrival of The Beast, who – like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood – is going to eat them up. It’s a motif that repeats throughout the film in various ways. One of Split’s most striking themes is that of the hunter and the hunted. And, like the other movies in the Unbreakable trilogy, it develops ideas about heroic or superhuman abilities. As the Horde reveal what lies in store, the girls realise they must escape before this final identity manifests itself.Īs well as elements of horror and thriller, Split touches on aspects of mental health (similarly to Shyamalan’s 2015 movie, The Visit and 2008’s The Happening). Referred to collectively as “the Horde”, Kevin’s personalities hint at a 24 th identity – a monstrous entity they call The Beast. Each of these personalities takes control of Kevin (‘has the light’) at different times. In fact, Kevin has 23 distinct personalities, including sociopathic Dennis, the genteel Patricia and 9-year-old Hedwig. ![]() Their kidnapper, Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), has Dissociative Identity Disorder. Three teenage girls are kidnapped on their way home from a birthday party and wake up in a remote basement. The Beast may not appear until the end of Split, but this film is shot through with beastly behaviour and ambiguous heroes.
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