Editorials
‘Split’s’ Biggest Surprise is its Protagonist Problem
Warning: This is spoiler territory.
Whether you call it a twist, reveal or revelation, Split certainly contains a big surprise that has a lot of people talking. But for me, the biggest surprise coming out of the film was how shockingly Shyamalan flounders in the protagonist department. And I’m not talking about failing to write a protagonist we “like” or “relate to”, or “care about”, but failing in creating a protagonist at all. Because, seriously, who is the protagonist in Split? Which character has agency in the story, is active, or has a compelling arch?
If your answer is Anya Taylor-Joy’s “Casey” you would be right by default. Certainly she’s the film’s Final Girl, and the movie’s opening moments tell us she’s our hero, but after the initial set-up, Casey is abandoned for long stretches of time, leaving all the active choices to the film’s other characters.
Take for example James McAvoy’s therapist, Dr. Fletcher (played by Betty Buckly) who becomes a sleuth of sorts, digging into CCTV footage for clues and ultimately making bold moves against him. Is she the protagonist? Certainly her action delivers a lot more of the information the movie gives us.
And then there’s Casey’s fellow captors. They may not have flashbacks filling in their backstory, but Shyamalan certainly gives them a lot more to do. Claire makes the film’s first daring escape by hammering the ceiling with her shoe while Casey… guards the door? And it’s Marcia who decides to take action against her aggressor in a bold move to meet McAvoy with physical force while Casey… looks on in shock? We can argue whether these were “smart” choices for those characters to make, but they were at least choices that propelled the narrative.
Remember 10 Cloverfield Lane? Remember agonizing along with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as she attempted to get that cell phone while chained to the wall? Remember when she makes the choice to attack John Goodman during that amazing dinner scene? Smart or not, her actions defined her and the relationships she had with the other characters. Director Dan Trachtenberg made sure to put his audience squarely in her experience and gave her all the agency. We just don’t get that same consideration here.
All this is not to deny that Anya Taylor-Joy is doing great work in the film. Indeed as John Squires rightly points out, her performance is solid, intense and nuanced but the writing is just not there for her character, which is most surprising because this is traditionally where Shyamalan excels. All of his films have rich and memorable main characters, each with specific characteristics, wants and flaws: The Village‘s Ivy Walker, literally blind to the dark truths of her world. Unbreakable‘s David Dunn, a nuanced study of how a normal, flawed family man comes to grips with identity and destiny. Heck, even The Visit gave us a more rounded character in budding filmmaker, Becca.
In Split, Shyamalan defines Casey as a victim and that’s pretty much it. And I would go even farther and suggest how he uses flashbacks to communicate this is not only a bit awkward, but a big storytelling cheat that allows him to avoid figuring out how to build a compelling character in the film proper. So when, during the film’s final moments, Shyamalan asks us to accept that her experience as McAvoy’s prisoner has finally allowed her to overcome her victim-hood through a single decision and action, it just didn’t feel earned to me. But hey, that’s just me.
I liked Split, and there’s a lot to like in it. I think it’s worth celebrating another financial success for M. Night Shyamalan and the fact that it owned the weekend box office means that we’ll be getting more tight thrillers from him in the future. But it’s also my opinion that as a showcase for McAvoy and his 23 personalities, Split ultimately robs us of a protagonist worthy of Shyamalan’s talents.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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