Although he was once hailed as a visionary who could serve as a new generation’s answer to Steven Spielberg, M. Night Shyamalanwas in a serious downward spiral after a series of major bombs forced even his most loyal fans to question his talents as a storyteller. Despite the acclaim that Shyamalan had earned for his work on The Sixth Sense and Signs, the failures of bombs like The Last Airbender and After Earth nearly put him in “director’s jail.”
While The Visit proved to be a modest success in which Shyamalan was able to return to his bone-chilling roots, it was the unprecedented breakout of Splitin 2016 that officially launched his comeback. In addition to continuing an original superhero franchise by serving as a secret sequel to Unbreakable, Split proved that Anya Taylor-Joy was one of the best scream queens of her generation.
Who Does Anya Taylor-Joy Play in ‘Split?’
Split centers on the enigmatic kidnapper Wendall Crumb (James McAvoy), whose diagnosis with dissociative identity disorder means that over 23 different personalities exist within his mind. While many of these identities are more passive in nature, they live in fear of a mysterious, untapped personality known as “The Beast.” Taylor-Joy appears as the teenage outcast Casey Cooke, who attends a birthday party with several classmates, despite only being invited out of sympathy. Nonetheless, Casey and the other girls are placed in the same precarious position when they are all kidnapped and become aware of their terrifying situation when they meet the personality known as “Barry,” who allows the other figures to move in and out of their bodies. Although Casey is determined to escape by reasoning with her mysterious captor, she is also forced to reflect on the abusive childhood that has made her so wary of trusting anyone.
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Taylor-Joy was given a very difficult task in Split, because Casey is a character who is purposefully awkward and has a hard time expressing her emotions. While the fact that her backstory is not revealed in full until later on in the film may have made it difficult for the audience to relate to her, Taylor-Joy is able to hint at how Casey has picked up on survival skills that allowed her to avoid the traps set up by the various personalities. The film’s narrative is way more complex than a simple kidnapping story; ultimately, Casey and Wendall are able to relate to one another, as they have both become closed off based on the way that they were treated when they were young. The fact that Taylor-Joy portrayed Casey as a brave, yet empathetic “final girl” made Split far more interesting than many other isolation thrillers.
Casey Cooke Has a Powerful Story Arc in ‘Split’
Jessica Sula, Haley Lu Richardson, and Anya Taylor-Joy in SplitImage Via Universal
Taylor-Joy’s performance was critical to one of the most controversial aspects of Split, as it is revealed that Casey has been sexually abused by her uncle, John (Brad William Henke), since she was a child. While the concept that this makes her and “The Beast” kindred spirits with one another may have generated some blowback, Taylor-Joy does an excellent job at showing how Casey’s repressed fear and anxiety have allowed her to pick up on nuances in behavior, ultimately ensuring her survival. Casey and Wendall connect because they both know what it is like to have their bodies taken advantage of, and have masked their feelings from those who claim to care about them because of shame. There are many ways in which this could have felt problematic, but Taylor-Joy, through a committed and compelling performance, was able to turn Casey into an empowering hero.
Split was a massive hit for both Blumhouse and Shyamalan, as it quickly made its low budget profitable and ensured the production of a sequel, Glass, which featured both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson reprising their roles from Unbreakable. Glass offered Taylor-Joy the opportunity to expand on Casey’s character arc, as she becomes critical in developing the public’s understanding of superheroes. Although it may have been McAvoy’s incredible physical performance that was central to the marketing for both films, Taylor-Joy was essential in giving the audience a character that they could be emotionally invested in.
Shyamalan has since continued this streak with films including Old, Knock at the Cabin, and the well-received Josh Hartnet-starring thriller Trap. And while the filmmaker continues to make his own unique brand of twist-filled thrillers, it’s undeniable that Split remains one of the greatest achievements of his career.
