They’ll make your blood pressure skyrocket, heart race, and have you gripping your seat with unbearable tension: Psychological thrillers are adrenaline injections in cinematic garb. At their best, these movies take us by the hand and accompany us into the deepest abysses of the human soul.
Shady characters play with the minds of both the protagonists and the viewers. Often the focus is on a question we ask ourselves repeatedly, a question that has burned itself deep into our brains and suddenly makes us see the world through different eyes: Which is real? What is not? Am I real?
Night Shyamalan returned with this literal mindfuck film with drum, bugles and usual twist affinity: the lives of three teenage girls change abruptly when they are kidnapped and imprisoned by a man who is a stranger to them.
Horror doubles for the young women when it soon becomes apparent that their tormentor, called Kevin, possesses multiple personalities: as many as 24 personalities reside in his mind. Called “the best,” this 24th personality is the worst of them all and tries to break out of Kevin with all her might. The teen girls know that it will mean their death sentence if they don’t manage to escape by then.
Shyamalan shamelessly takes the “Dr Jekill & Mr Hyde” motif to the extreme when he has his lead actor James McAvoy portray at least eight different personalities. This is a dream come true for any actor, which McAvoy lives out with evident joy.
He succeeds in believably showing different facets of the human condition without ever drifting into the ridiculous, which makes McAvoy’s performance the heart of the film. In Split, the performance becomes a horror trip that generates tension from the uncontrollability of evil. Its finale is a classic WTF Shyamalan moment.
