Editorials
Shyamalan’s ‘Split’ Has a Bit of a Twist Problem
*THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS. AVOID READING UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN SPLIT*
It should come as no surprise that Split has a twist. A really cool one.
M. Night Shyamalan’s Split is an immediately compelling film. Three young women are kidnapped from a parking lot by a mysterious man who clearly isn’t playing with a full deck, and they’re taken to some sort of underground bunker that’s strangely well-furnished. We quickly learn that the man has multiple (well over 20 of them) personalities within himself, but like the characters themselves, we have no idea why these women have been kidnapped. We have no idea what the man’s plan is. And we really have no idea what’s even going on. We just know that the many personalities seem dead set on the idea that a so-called “Beast” will soon be making an appearance. And goddamn is it tense while we wait for his arrival.
It’s no secret by now that Shyamalan is a filmmaker who builds most of his movies around a final act twist, and Split is certainly no different. We’re promised answers to all the questions we (and the characters) have been pondering throughout, and we can be pretty sure that things won’t turn out how we’re expecting them to. But the strange thing about Split is that they do. For the most part, everything about the core story ends up in the exact place we’d most expect it to. Everything the multiple characters residing within the villain (including a man, a woman, and a child) have been telling the women turns out to be true: one of those personalities is a “Beast” of sorts, and he ends up killing and consuming two of the women.
The other one, the clear survivor from the outset… she survives. Go figure.
So what’s the big twist? After the movie’s title comes up on screen and it seems to be over, we’re treated to a post-credits stinger of sorts. The occupants of a diner are watching a news story about the events we just witnessed. One of them remarks that the story seems similar to something that happened years prior: a train was blown up by a man given a villainous moniker by the media. The man sitting next to the woman who makes the comment turns out to be Bruce Willis’ heroic character from Unbreakable (and yes, he’s played by Willis). “Mr. Glass,” he tells the woman, when she inquires about the train attacker’s name. Yes, Split is revealed to be, in the literal final moment, freakin’ Unbreakable 2.
Okay so that’s super cool. My jaw honestly dropped nearly to the floor, and though I’m pretty sure most everyone else in the theater with me had no idea why such a big star like Bruce Willis was popping up for a cameo appearance at the tail end of a horror film (‘wait, is this a Die Hard movie?!‘), I can confirm that I was genuinely shocked and totally surprised. Like Shyamalan’s best twists, I damn sure didn’t see this one coming, and as I left the theater and walked to my car, I had a huge smile on my face. I was thrilled. And totally won over.
There’s simply no denying that Split‘s twist is a treat for longtime Shyamalan fans, ending the film on the highest of notes; but as I made the drive home and the thrill of that shocker wore off a bit, I began to remember that just prior to that post-credits stinger, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the film. In fact, I was downright disappointed by the way the initially riveting events played out. The twist, though it distracted from the movie’s flaws, only distracted me for so long.
Highlighted by an incredible performance (or series of performances, really) from James McAvoy that would probably earn him an Oscar nomination had this not been a horror film, as well as yet another one from Anya Taylor-Joy that suggests she’s quickly on her way to becoming genre royalty, Split is a fine film, but it’s also one that just doesn’t really go anywhere. As compelling as it is in the early going, it eventually starts to drag and, worst of all, feel longer than it actually is. It feels as if Shyamalan didn’t quite know where to go with the clever concept (using multiple personality disorder as the basis for, essentially, a body-horror film, is pretty damn clever), and by the time the end title popped up on the screen, I had almost completely lost interest in the whole thing. The story doesn’t really even end, at least not in satisfying fashion, and in many ways it feels like a film that’s missing a few final scenes that it really needed to feel like a complete whole that said something and was worth sitting through. It could’ve also used a trim in the editing room, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.
Let’s get back to that totally awesome twist, which provides the illusion of making the film feel complete and satisfying. It makes you forget that the actual story wasn’t very good, because holy shit, that’s Bruce Willis and this was a sequel to Unbreakable. But when you take that away, and look at the story that was actually being told in Split, you’re left with an incomplete movie that, let’s be honest, kind of shits the bed in the final act. Sure, the twist is the coolest we’ve seen in a handful of years, but it’s also one of the cheapest we’ve ever seen. Shyamalan pulls that card out way too late in the game, and he damn near pulls it from the bottom of the deck. Rather than focusing on telling us a new story, he instead chooses to remind us of an old one, hoping that we’ll be too awestruck to care that he didn’t really bother to finish that new story or create something on the level of the old one.
And it works… if only for a few minutes.
Ultimately though, Split‘s twist makes the film feel like a prequel to the nonexistent movie you’d rather watch instead: Unbreakable 2. It reminds, and not in a good way, of those superhero movies that build up excitement for the future while not actually delivering anything worthwhile in the present. I admire Shyamalan for creating his own super-villain universe of sorts (the brilliant Unbreakable, my personal favorite of his films, remains the best grounded-in-reality superhero movie ever made), and I’m hoping he does build upon it in the future, but I can’t help but be baffled by the choice to make Split a half-ass sequel to Unbreakable rather than a full-on one or, well, its own thing entirely. Had David Dunn (Bruce Willis) showed up earlier in the film, I’d probably have a new favorite movie in Split, but connecting the two in literally the final moment had a cheapness to it that rubbed me the wrong way. It was fan service, to be sure, but it was fan service that seemed specifically designed to distract us from the fact that Split was a half-cocked movie that couldn’t stand on its own two feet.
Split deserved better than its cop-out ending, cool as it may have been.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Evil Dead Burn.
Fans of The Evil Dead franchise have become accustomed to an excess of gore. From the low-fi horror of Sam Raimi’s 1981 original and the slapstick comedy of Army of Darkness to Fede Álvarez’s 2013 remake, which literally ends in a rain of blood, grotesque dismemberment and comedic violence are as important to an Evil Dead film as the outline of Bruce Campbell’s iconic jaw.
Sébastien Vaniček‘s franchise installment, Evil Dead Burn, follows suit with wall-to-wall violence and set pieces built around extreme carnage. As the Deadites rise once again, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) must fight to the death against her possessed in-laws hell-bent on punishing her for their family’s sins.
Co-written by Vaniček and Florent Bernard, Evil Dead Burn follows the ill-fated Price family, descendants of Dr. Benjamin Price who discovered an ancient dagger capable of sending Kandarian demons back to hell. Newly uncovered from its protective spell, this dagger has called to the evil dead and led them to the family’s ramshackle home. Keeping plot to a bare minimum, Vaniček fills nearly every scene with powerful Deadites and their dastardly acts as they torture the Prices to find the weapon. Horrific moments like a woman drinking hot wax from a lit candle and a shocking post-credits child murder don’t even crack the top ten of disgusting, painful, and disturbing carnage that floods the film.
In any other franchise, we would be listing the film’s most gruesome kills. But fans of Evil Dead know that when we’re talking about the Necronomicon, mere death is only the beginning.
10 ) Deadites Burn
Though Burn checks off all the Evil Dead boxes, its story is a franchise anomaly. Rather than possessing anyone who crosses their path, Vaniček’s Deadites have set their sights specifically on an unwitting clan, intent on recovering the powerful dagger. Resurrected from a nearby lake, Deadite Jessica (Greta van den Brink) informs us of this plan while murdering the eldest Price son. Will (George Pullar) is speeding down a deserted road when he slams into the malevolent demon standing in the middle of the road. After his car rolls off the deserted road, he awakens to find himself upside down, a strange woman lodged in his cracked windshield.
As he desperately tries to reach his phone, Jessica slowly twists her head, tearing the skin of her distended neck. Completely detached from her shattered body, the demon’s head rolls out the window and begins chanting a Kandarian curse. Will’s car bursts into flames as Jessica vows to seek out the rest of his family. While burning alive, Will learns that he is merely the first on a deadly hitlist filled with the people he loves most.
9) Dinner from Hell
Despite a remarkably streamlined plot, Vaniček hints at the Price family’s extensive dysfunction. An uncomfortable dinner erupts in aggression as they gather for lunch after Will’s funeral. Mother Susan (Tandi Wright) berates her recently widowed daughter-in-law while father Edgar (Erroll Shand) — already under Kandarian influence — blames younger son Joseph (Hunter Doohan) for his eldest son’s death. No one is safe as long-held tensions break through to the surface and family secrets ricochet through the air.
With Edgar behaving erratically, Alice and Thya (Luciane Buchanan), Joseph’s girlfriend, try to move sharp objects out of his reach. But Edgar manages to get a hold of a fork and turns his rage on the family dog. As he stabs Max repeatedly in the face, Joseph tries to pull his father away. Both are injured in the struggle and rush to the hospital, leaving Susan and Alice to deal with the corpse. A horrific moment of animal cruelty, this scene sets up a no-holds-barred film in which anyone can be brutalized. But perhaps most disturbing is the viciousness already lurking in this troubled family, barely concealed resentments that existed long before the Kandarian threat.
8 ) Bathroom Brawl
As Deadites possess the Price family, Alice barricades herself in an upstairs bathroom. She reluctantly shields her mother-in-law, despite Susan’s atrocious behavior. Almost immediately, Alice regrets this decision when the woman reveals the depths of her hatred. She rejects clear evidence of Will’s domestic abuse, continuing to blame Alice for their troubled marriage. Leaning her cheek against a scalding hot radiator, Susan submits to Kandarian possession and becomes a Deadite before our eyes. Though disturbing on its face, she seems to choose possession over an honest reckoning of her family’s dark secrets.
Now a Deadite, Susan attacks Alice with broken shards of the toilet bowl and wraps the shower curtain around her head. Scampering across the ceiling, she hangs her daughter-in-law by the neck with the plastic sheet as Alice desperately gasps for air. With only her hand free, Alice gouges Susan’s face with a safety razor, finally managing to break herself free. As Deadite Susan taunts her from the corner, Alice revs up a brush trimmer and plunges the circular blade into her shoulder and chest. We cheer for Alice as she finally pushes back against Susan’s passive-aggressive disdain.
7) The Pen is Mightier
In a sea of blood-splattered dismemberment, one scene is so tense that it makes us squirm despite its lack of visual gore. With the family’s ailing matriarch possessed, Deadite Polly (Maude Davey) attacks Alice in the upstairs hallway, pressing her face against the bush trimmer’s still blade. Insisting that Alice has caused Will’s death, Polly invites the grieving woman to avenge her child by turning on the power tool. An instant before her mother-in-law can send the blade tearing into her cheek, Alice manages to escape by jamming a shard of glass into Polly’s eye. But not before the elderly demon can deliver a cringe-worthy injury.
Though Alice struggles with all her might, Polly slowly drives a fountain pen into the younger woman’s ear canal. Ringing blots out all other sounds as Alice’s face twists in pain. We imagine a tiny object bursting through our own eardrums, puncturing the soft tissue lying beneath. Though Alice tries to extract the pen, she only succeeds in breaking it off, leaving half of the quill buried in her ear. She will eventually use tweezers to remove the tip, sparking another moment of deafening agony.
6) Chekhov’s Dishwasher
As Susan prepares for the aforementioned family meal, Vaniček drops a delicious bit of foreshadowing. While the grieving mother thaws frozen food, she absently fills an old dishwasher whose door has long since busted its latch. Reminiscent of a scene from Final Destination, the faulty appliance falls open, leaving a shelf full of gleaming forks and knives suspended a foot above the floor, just waiting for their moment to strike. After returning from a fatal incident we’ll discuss in a moment, Deadite Thya returns to the Price home, hell-bent on retrieving the powerful knife.
As she advances on Joseph, the frightened son retreats to the kitchen and brandishes a carving knife, subtly nodding to an ultra-violent kitchen scene in Álvarez’s Evil Dead. But Thya will not be deterred. Advancing on her boyfriend, the Deadite startles him into tripping on the outstretched door and impaling himself on the upturned utensils. She presses Joseph further onto the blades while he plunges a corkscrew into her throat. But even this will not stop the maniacal demon, who rips her throat open with the wine tool, dripping her blood over Joseph’s upturned face. Adding insult to injury, she marvels at his willingness to kill the woman he professed to love, casting a pall over their entire relationship. Not only gruesome and excruciatingly tense, but this moment plays into Joseph’s insecurities as the failed son of this disturbed family.
5 ) On the Lake
Evil Dead Burn begins on a seemingly peaceful lake overrun with lurking Kandarian demons. Jared (Keanu Karim) is trying to enjoy a quiet day of fishing but can’t stop his friend Leo (Victory Ndukwe) from answering the phone. Along the dock, Jared notices a bite on Leo’s reel and eventually pulls up a severed head savvy viewers may recognize from Lee Cronin’s 2023 sequel Evil Dead Rise. Moments later, Jared finds himself ensnared by reels, hooks digging into the corner of his mouth and eyelid. As the fishing line wraps around his neck, he’s dragged, screaming, into the lake.
Leo returns in the pouring rain and sees Jared desperately calling for help. He quickly boats out to save his friend, but a mysterious force pulls him down into the depths. Leo finally drags Jared back into the boat, only to see that his body has been cut in half, intestines spilling out of his bisected waist. As he struggles to make sense of this carnage, Deadite Jessica emerges from the lake and capsizes the boat, her clenched demon hands causing the water to boil. Though Leo manages to swim to shore, his skin is a blistered and bubbly mess. Deadite Jessica absently steps on his hand, easily peeling away flesh like overcooked meat. This jaw-dropping opener not only sets the stage for a brutal film, but situates the story in franchise lore while simply explaining the Deadites’ return.
4) Car Trouble
The shocking trailer to Evil Dead Burns shows the aftermath of a vicious attack. As Deadite Thya crosses the family threshold, the camera reveals a car’s headrest still impaling her face. But this devastating sight merely hints at the cruel circumstances of her actual death. Incapacitated in the disastrous family dinner, Edgar slumps in the backseat while Joseph tends to his wounds. Though seemingly incapacitated, the possessed father snaps to attention and wraps his seatbelt around Thya’s neck, pushing against the back of her seat. Joseph holds a gun to his father’s head, but can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
As Thya tries to escape the car, Edgar viciously slams the door, severing four of her fingers. She manages to trigger a fire extinguisher, filling the car with cloudy white chemicals and giving Joseph a chance to escape. But Thya is not so lucky. Trapped in the car, she screams as Edgar pummels her with a detached headrest, stabbing the poles through her neck and face. Joseph watches from a safe distance as his father beats his girlfriend to death, knowing he was unable to save her life.
3) Head Shots
When Deadite Thya comes stumbling back home, Joseph believes he’s seen the worst. Unfortunately, his misery is only beginning. After fighting off his newly-sadistic undead girlfriend, he tries to flee with his surviving family, only to find Deadite Edgar blocking his path. Flanked by Deadite Max, Edgar taunts his son by insisting that he should be dead in Will’s place and confirming the young man’s greatest fears. Edgar then does what Joseph could not and shoots himself in the head.
The family screams in horror at this devastating sight, then freezes in stunned silence as Edgar does not fall. Grinning, the maniacal father shoots himself twice more, blowing gaping holes in the sides of his head. For the rest of the film, Deadite Edgar will terrorize his family with these unthinkable wounds, even tempting his wife with a bloody kiss. Vaniček mixes emotional devastation with gore as Joseph must watch his father’s suicide while confronting the truth of his own ineptitude.
2) Down Through the Chimney
Along with references to the beloved Ash (Campbell), it’s become tradition for an Evil Dead film to reference the franchise’s signature weapon. But Vaniček subverts our expectations when Edgar’s chainsaw is out of gas. Instead, Alice employs a rusty bush trimmer to fight off her Deadite mother-in-law. Unfortunately, the extended weapon only shreds her flesh, leaving the monstrous woman still able to fight. Trapped in the attic, Alice must clamber out of an upper window with Deadite Susan hot on her heels.
Having dropped the ceremonial knife off the third-story roof, Alice has no choice but to improvise. Toting the bush trimmer, she inches her way down the chimney, pausing to turn halfway down. As Susan follows her daughter-in-law down the chute, Alice turns on the bush trimmer and waits for impact. Vaniček brings us into the living room as buckets of blood and dismembered body parts begin to rain down over the hearth. It’s the kind of moment Evil Dead fans love, gleefully gory carnage via an unexpected power tool.
1 ) Goodbye Stranger
Despite this plethora of grisly gore, Vaniček’s final act tops the list while delivering a poignant beat of empowerment. With the house on fire and the Deadites subdued, we believe that Alice is finally safe. But as she watches the Price home burn to the ground, the corpse of her husband walks out of the flames. He taunts her memories of their abusive marriage, insisting that she stayed because she likes the pain. Demanding the sacred weapon, Deadite Will chases Alice to a construction site and into an open hydraulic press. In the fall, Alice impales her ankle on a massive spike, leaving her trapped as the pit fills with boiling hot tar.
But Alice finds the strength to save herself and pulls her ankle off the bloody spike. She distracts Will with a decoy knife, then pummels his chest with a jackhammer. Exacerbating her emotional pain, Deadite Will reminds her of his love. But it seems that Alice has had enough. She stabs him with the ceremonial blade, then crushes his head as it turns to ash. It’s a well-earned moment of empowerment as our final girl vanquishes her most powerful demon.
Vaniček’s crowd-pleaser continues the Evil Dead trend of gleefully crude massacres. Two extra scenes hint at a continuation of this gruesome massacre, promising more brutality in films to come.
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