Reviews: Split (2016) Movie Review
Subgenres: Featured Psychological, Psychological, Confined, Drama, Madness, Split Personality, Blumhouse
Our honest review of Split (2016) breaks down its scares, pacing, and whether this horror movie truly stands the test of time.
Split (2016) is a 1h 57 min PG-13 American psychological thriller horror film that was shot in several locations in Pennsylvania, USA and was a thematic sequel to Unbreakable (2000). Director and writer M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004)) did an excellent job executing this phenomenal movie that follows a man with 23 different personalities. The film contains violence, bad language, suggestions of cannibalism, implies s**ual relations, multiple personality disorder, blood, mental illness, a sad**tic psychopath, a psychopathic killer, and child m***station.
M. Night Shyamalan career is taking off in an upswing, and I cannot wait to see what he brings us next as he is known for his surprising and shocking twist endings. His twist endings can be good and bad, all depending on the viewers because some may overanalyze the movie and find it to be difficult to watch knowing that there may be a twist at the end. I adore and love how Split had me guessing/thinking at every corner and applause goes out to how suspenseful the movie was.
Split revolves around a man (Dennis/Patricia/Hedwig/The Beast/Kevin Wendell Crumb/Barry/Orwell/Jade) who has several names resulting from him having a personality disorder. The man (James McAvoy - X-Men: First Class (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Wanted (2008), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)) has 23 different personalities that always fights to shine. We first met the first personality, Dennis who is obsessed with being clean but did not care about cleanliness when he drugged and kidnapped three teenage girls in their car. I felt sorry for the three girls as they witnessed the man (Dennis) personality changing from one personality to another, remember he has 23 personalities. The girls were terrified out of their minds as they saw what dangerous things the maniac man had in store for them.
I like the fact that Split did not waste time and plunged into the meat of the situation in a nice quick, timely manner. I could not get over how Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy - The Witch (2015), Morgan (2016), Barry (2016)) was so abnormally calm and attentive whenever Dennis is around. The flashbacks help us to see why Casey was so calm and collective as we got a glimpse of her past with her uncle and father on a hunting trip. Claire (Haley Lu Richardson - The Edge of Seventeen (2016), The Last Survivors (2014), The Young Kieslowski (2014)) is the feisty and proactive friend who will be ideal to have in a survival situation. Marcia (Jessica Sula - Honeytrap (2014), Skins (2011-2012), Recovery Road (2016)) is the friend that I would not like to have in a bad situation as she is nervous and fearful. McAvoy’s performance was purely magnificent as he portrays several characters flawlessly.
Sources Used to Shape This Review
Insights in this review are drawn from director interviews, fan commentary, production notes, and long-form breakdowns across genre-specific platforms. Content is written uniquely and reviewed for accuracy.
- Split Rating Scores
- Our Score: 7/10
- Overall Score: 7.11/10
- IMDB: 7.3/10
- MetaCritic: 6.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 7.9/10
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