Rating: PG-13

Score: 8 out of 10

Equally parts thrilling, creepy, and riveting, M. Night Shyamalan’s Split was released on Jan. 20, 2017, and is a stunning return to fame for the director, who can design a mesmerizing, enthralling psychological horror film without relying on his tired and overdone tricks to entertain the audience.

In Split, three teenage girls, Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy), Claire Benoit (Haley Lu Richardson), and Marcia (Jessica Sula) are chloroformed and kidnapped by dissociative identity disorder suffering Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) at a birthday party. They awaken in an abandoned room and are then continuously greeted by the different personalities Kevin has, including the severely perverted Dennis, the cold and calculating older woman Patricia, and the naïve and fun loving Hedwig who has the mind of a child. They all tell of a greater being, “The Beast”, another personality who will bring about great death and destruction.

Shyamalan’s work is stellar here. He’s created a film that beautifully walked the line between absolutely insane and ridiculously unbelievable. Kevin’s character is completely creepy and unnerving and doesn’t feel campy in the slightest, unlike the other villains in this recent surge of psychological horror thrillers. Shyamalan does an excellent slow burn job at revealing information, piece-by-piece revealing backstory about Kevin, each piece being creepier than the next, yet we constantly want to know more. By creating an enticing, yet horrific mystery behind Kevin, we fall right into what Shyamalan wants. He wants us glued to the screen, wanting to desperately know more about Kevin, no matter how many scares we get along the way. The anticipation and terror all finally comes to a head at the film’s climax, which is a complete pulse-pounding thrill ride that jolts you after its slow, yet terrific build up. Like I said earlier, Shyamalan doesn’t rely on stupid tricks like a nonsensical twist to entertain audiences this time around, which really helps this film.

Someone who deserves just as much credit as Shyamalan is McAvoy, who took on the daunting task of playing multiple characters, all who have different quirks and personalities. He absolutely nailed all of his performances. He uses his facial expressions as well as a distinct and different voice for each personality to give them a life of their own. McAvoy truly makes the audience feel as if a different actor played them each. He is that good. I really feel the unsettling nature of Dennis, I feel intimidated by Patricia, ad it honestly feels as though a child actor portrays Hedwig. I don’t know if the film could have walked the line between unnerving and laughably absurd as good as it did with a different actor.

There’s a lot to love about Split, and while Casey is a fine enough protagonist, with a decent backstory, it must be said that she feels all too like many other female protagonists of recent horror films, and thus, her and her friends feel somewhat bland in comparison to their captor. The film spent all its time fleshing out Kevin’s personality, it’s a shame it couldn’t do more of that for the girls, as they are the ones we are supposed to care about and hope are okay by the end.

With Shyamalan and McAvoy firing on all cylinders with their directing and acting respectively, as well as valid messages on mental health and abuse, Split is an absolutely masterclass in psychological thriller horror, a genre that has felt somewhat bland in recent years.