Split * *

He's mad!  (And so we're the audience. Mad as hell)

M.Night Shyamalan is the luckiest bugger in the world, because he keeps writing, producing and directing really bad “Suspense” “Mystery” and “Horror” films and people keep reckoning he is brilliant. Talk about the Emperor's New Clothes!  He’s shit. Why doesn't’ someone just come out and say it?

    Oh look he’s probably a very nice man, but most of his work is overrated crap.  And this is no exception. Even the guys who used to slap together disposable horror movies for the teenagers in the forties and fifties came up with better stuff than this guy does.  The M.Night Shyamalan show runs on too  much money and too little criticism.

   Split is half-baked, messy nonsense, which is fine. That kind of film has its place but it’s promoted as being so much more than that.

   You know what really kills me about the little criticism this film has received? The complaints that it is a misrepresentation of Mental Health. How could anyone seriously interested or concerned about mental health consider this load of codswallop to be in any way a misrepresentation of people with mental health problems?! Complaining that this misrepresents mental health is like complaining that King Kong or Godzilla endorses animal cruelty.  It’s so far from reality it’s ridiculous.   Anyway what is the most common line in horror films? …..  “You’re mad!” No one complains about that simplistic summary of complex disorders.

   In Split a guy has 24 personalities inside himself and one of them is real bad and wants to kidnap young teenage girls - so he does. It would be hard to find a bustier, poutier, more nubile three than the ones he chooses.  He locks them up and then visits them as different personalities that keep manifesting. He can't help it. He just wakes up like that.

   It turns out one of the girls, Casey, is a victim of sexual and emotional abuse so she knows how to handle this freak. She’s got cunning.

    Someone else who reckons she knows how to handle this freak, Kevin, is his Psych, whom he visits on a regular basis.  His psych is supposed to be a world expert on people who have multiple personalities.  Personally, I reckon that’s all of us.  Don't believe me? Just pour a few drinks into someone - or even yourself - and see what happens.

   Anyway, back to the silly plot: the girls are incarcerated and “Kevin”keeps visiting them as a mean man, a child, a woman and ultimately the baddest of all the personalities inside himself.

   Some folks say that James Mcavoy as the madman is brilliant in this, but it’s mostly a showcase of silly vignettes that most actors learn to do in workshops.

    The plot gets more ridiculous and weaker as it progresses, culminating in an ending where the location where they are being locked up is revealed to us. Needless to say it's as stupid and unlikely as the rest of the film.