Movies
A Beast is Unleashed On the ‘Split’ Poster
A new poster for the upcoming psychological thriller Split (read our review) has been released and it warns viewers of Kevin’s 23 distinct personalities…and to be worried about the 24th.
In the film, opening in theaters January 20, 2017, The Witch‘s Anya Taylor-Joy is kidnapped (along with two of her friends) by James McAvoy. Here’s the kicker… there may or may not be a monster. If there is, it might just be McAvoy who physically transforms into one; it’s like a new kind of werewolf movie with a taste of “Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”!
Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula and Haley Lu Richardson also star in Split, which Trace Thurman reviewed after its secret screening at this past September’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. He explains that, “Like many of [Shyamalan’s) films, it will no doubt split (sorry) audiences, but McAvoy’s performance alone earns the film a full recommendation. He is a marvel to behold.”
Here’s the full plot crunch:
While the mental divisions of those with dissociative identity disorder have long fascinated and eluded science, it is believed that some can also manifest unique physical attributes for each personality, a cognitive and physiological prism within a single being.
Though Kevin (James McAvoy) has evidenced 23 personalities to his trusted psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), there remains one still submerged who is set to materialize and dominate all the others. Compelled to abduct three teenage girls led by the willful, observant Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy, The Witch), Kevin reaches a war for survival among all of those contained within him—as well as everyone around him—as the walls between his compartments shatter apart.
Barbarian director Zach Cregger is sending Austin Abrams on a nonstop survival roller coaster in Resident Evil, and a fresh image from Empire introduces just one of many monstrous encounters ahead.
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil opens in theaters and IMAX September 18 from Sony.
Austin Abrams (Weapons) stars as Bryan, a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in a non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
In the fresh image, Abrams’ character appears trapped with an infected passenger.
“The concept here is that we’re following an idiot,” Cregger tells Empire. “Not that he’s stupid, but he’s not your typical game character, with no combat skills whatsoever and completely inept at survival. Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this kind of sacred mission that’s going to take him into the heart of everything. It’s kind of like Frodo going into Mordor.”
Zach Cherry (“Severance”), Kali Reis (“True Detective: Night Country”), Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird”), and Johnno Wilson (“Twisted Metal”) round out the cast.
Cregger directs from a script he co-wrote with Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapters 3 & 4).
“It feels like one gigantic sequence,” he said of the film’s structure. “Things pop off about five minutes in, and it basically stays like that until the end. What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge. So again, I’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet.”
What’s noteworthy about this particular image, though, is that Cregger previously warned that there would be very few actual zombies in his film. Instead, expect a revolving door of T-virus mutants: “This movie doesn’t utilize zombies that much. It’s much more focused on the weird creature stuff than the zombies. There’s really only two scenes, maybe three, where there’s proper zombie stuff going on. And two of those three are in the trailer.”
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