SPLIT Badly Represents Dissociative Identity Disorder

Split [2016] / Universal Pictures AND BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS

About Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is when someone has more than one existence of identity. The body is the host or system, while the identities are known as alters. DID can be identified by the changes in behaviour, memory, and thinking, as well as clothing, how they speak, and body language. Most people diagnosed with DID suffered some trauma when they were little. Some of the most common alter identities that someone can have are: the host, protector, child (littles), opposite gender, persecutor, and internal self-helper. 

I’m not an expert on DID, but I’ve been trying to learn more and more about the disorder and how it works. One of the best examples of this would be DissociaDID on YouTube; they are a channel that gives explanations on what DID is and introduces the different alters in the system.

About Split

Split is about Kevin (played by James McAvoy), who has been diagnosed with DID—since a childhood trauma—and has 23 different alters. The alters that show up more are Barry, Dennis, Patricia, and Hedwig. One of the identities, Dennis, kidnaps three teenage girls and holds them hostage. The three young girls (played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula) must try to find a way out before Kevin’s violently powerful 24th alter, known as “the Beast”, comes to life. 

Why Split is a bad representation of DID

Split has villainized those who happen to live with multiple personalities. It portrays people with DID to be harmful and violent to others, which is not the case at all. People with DID are the victims of trauma and abuse; they are not abusers. They are more likely to harm themselves rather than others around them. While Split briefly addresses childhood trauma and how the alters help the system cope, it has failed to represent DID correctly. 

On the website Business Insider, there is an article called Dissociative identity disorder is nothing like how it’s portrayed in ‘Split’, according to people who have it. The article mentions four people who have multiple personalities and how their system works. Each person talks about how all the alters have a purpose in keeping the system healthy and safe, and they all have a different job within the system. 

On the Business Insider website, the same people talk about what they want the readers to know about DID. Split shows that someone diagnosed with DID has one or more evil alters, but the majority of people with DID don’t have identities that have those evil desires.

“…alters who were considered ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ by the rest of the system, only to come to understand that these individuals are actually very badly hurt children who have been tasked with carrying the bulk of the sadness, rage, and pain associated with abuse.”

— https://www.businessinsider.com/living-with-split-personality-disorder-2017-2

Besides Split representing people with DID as evil and dangerous, the movie also portrays the switches all wrong too. The shifts from alter to alter are over the top and apparent, and real switches are not as obvious. In the film, each alter had a full wardrobe, and you can easily distinguish when a switch between identities happens. In real life, people with DID try to blend in with other people and not have a whole wardrobe for every identity. And their switches are smaller than what the movie shows, so you wouldn’t be able to distinguish what identity took over the system.

I also want to point out that after the movie came out, James McAvoy tried to talk to somebody with DID. But because the movie badly represented the disorder, nobody wanted to talk to him. That should speak for itself.

My Thoughts

People with DID are just that, people. They’re not evil, dangerous, or ‘beasts’. Movies like this hurt them because they’re being shown as monsters. I read some stories told by people with DID, and it made my heart hurt that they have to go through life and witness uneducated people make a movie about their disorder. It’s not right.

Educate Yourselves.

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Cassandra Purcell

Cassandra is a second-year student in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. She loves writing real-life horror stories, being anti-social, and watching American Horror Story.

Sharknado is so Bad it's Good

Sharknado [2013] / Syfy

“Sharks in a tornado. Sharknado. Simply stunning.” - Sharknado.

What do you need to survive a sharknado? Well, you need to be Fin Shepard, but chainsaws and explosives will do just fine.

Sharknado (directed by Anthony C. Ferrante) is a comedic horror sci-fi movie about a tornado that carries around sharks and kills people along the way. That’s it, that’s the plot. This plot carried on for six movies because the director had nothing better to do. The film follows Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering), April Wexler (Tara Reid), Nova Clarke (Cassandra Scerbo), and many others who are kind of irrelevant.

The series of movies follow Shepard and friends/family as he tries to chainsaw his way out of multiple sharks. Along with the insanely weird plot, there have been lots of cheesy lines, which make the movies more enjoyable to watch. Without those cheesy lines, there wouldn’t be much rooting for these movies. The only other reason I watch it is because I have an obsession with sharks. And I love watching my least favourite character, Wexler, almost die multiple times. Also, there is a soft spot in my heart for Shepard giving motivational speeches in front of huge crowds. 

The first Sharknado movie takes place in Los Angeles, California. We meet Shepard, his family, Clarke, and some side characters. That’s also when we get introduced to the first “sharknado” they have to face. The plot isn’t half bad, but it could go a long way if some main characters died. My favourite cheesy line from the first movie would be from a store clerk.

“Apocalypse my ass! This isn’t the end of the world! Gods, they’re not angry with us, the aliens aren’t coming down! It’s the government! With a big capital ‘G’! They’re behind EVERYTHING! They know what we buy, they know what we eat, where we go to the bathroom. They know what kind of CHEESE I like…Pepper Jack. They control it all! And the weather too! I gotta hand it to em though, SHARKS? I never saw THAT coming. ”

— https://www.quotes.net/mquote/1063365

In the second movie, Shepard and Wexler travel to New York City after terminating the “sharknado” that trashed Los Angeles. They planned to hang out with some family and watch some baseball, but that doesn’t go according to plan. Sadly, “sharknados” have followed them and have put another place under their destruction belt. This movie couldn’t have made it without Shepard’s motivational speech, and it was the highlight of my life. 

“I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. They’re sharks. They’re scary. No one wants to get eaten. But I’ve been eaten. And I’m here to tell you it takes a lot more than that to bring a good man down. A lot more than that to bring a New Yorker down. Let’s go show them what it means to be a hero. Let’s go show them what it means to be a New Yorker! Let’s go kill some sharks!”

— https://www.quotes.net/mquote/1063383

In the third movie, Shepard and Wexler go to Washington, DC and Orlando, Florida. Wexler is with her daughter in Universal Studios, and she is carrying her third child. Shepard travels from Washington to Orlando to gather his family and keep them safe from yet another “sharknado” with the help of Clarke and her friend. The plot is the same for the entire movie, until the ending when something exciting happens. Wexler gets swallowed up by a shark, and soon after, she comes crawling out with a baby in her hands. She gave birth in a shark. It’s unrealistic, but that’s one thing that surprised me during this movie.

The fourth movie takes place in Chicago and Las Vegas. It wasn’t just a sharknado this time; there was a lightningado, oilnado, firenado, cownado, a sandnado with rocks, and a nuclearnado. I wish I thought of this; I have never seen anything this creative before. 

The fifth movie takes Shepard, his family, and friends around the world to stop a global sharknado, and there’s not much to say about that. And the final movie takes the Shepards to different time zones to put a stop to the very first sharknado from ever existing, which will bring all the family together again.

Even though many people wrote terrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, it will always be that movie you watch when you’re bored out of your mind. Sharknado isn’t for everybody, but you will never know what you will think of it until you have seen at least one.

Check out the first Sharknado movie trailer.

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Cassandra Purcell

Cassandra is a second-year student in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. She loves writing real-life horror stories, being anti-social, and watching American Horror Story.

Doctor Sleep Made Me Sleep

Doctor Sleep [2019] [Warner Bros]

As a lover of the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, which was directed by Stanley Kubrick, I was excited to watch the sequel Doctor Sleep. I remember watching The Shining when I was 12 with my dad. It wasn’t scary to me; I laughed at the parts that people would normally be afraid of. The wrinkly ghost lady in the bathtub was always one of the funniest parts for me. So, I thought Doctor Sleep would have humorous bits with dark and chilling scenes. But all I got was a giant snooze fest. I’m a true horror fan, so watching this movie that claims to be horrific and scary truly let me down. 

The movie follows actor Ewan McGregor as Dan Torrance, an alcoholic, who is still traumatized by the events of his childhood at the Overlook Hotel. He tries to live a very peaceful life, but that all seems to shatter when he meets Abra (played by Kyleigh Curran). Abra is a teen who shares his gift of the “shine”. She seeks his help to take down a cult —called The True Knot— that is led by Rose The Hat (played by Rebecca Ferguson) who feeds off of those who “shine” to become immortal. In order to help take down Rose and her cult, Danny helps Abra unleash her special abilities as he faces his fears of the past. 

This storyline would be more engaging if the director made the cult leaders more intimidating and horrifying. This movie is rated R for being ‘disturbing’ and ‘violent,’ but all I got was PG-13 for its lack of horror. If something is going to be rated R, it should be one of the most skin-crawling movies ever to see the light or at least scare me a little. The Wrap website wrote an article on the 5 Reasons Doctor Sleep Snoozed at the Box Office. The main points of the article state that there was a much older horror audience, too much time between sequels, the release date, a short marketing campaign, and that not all Stephen King adaptations are equal. I agree with what The Wrap wrote (especially about the film’s release date). Doctor Sleep was released in November, but the movie might have done better if it came out before Halloween, which is the spooky season.

The scare factor isn’t the only thing that disappointed me. Close to the end of the movie when Danny and Abra went back to the Overlook Hotel, Dan has to “wake up the hotel and all the monsters in it”. Dan goes to the same bar at the hotel his dad use to go to and gets served by a man who calls himself “Lloyd” that resembles his father. At this scene, I was hoping that Jack Nicholson would randomly cameo, but my prayers were denied. Maybe Nicholson was busy or they couldn’t get him to show up for that part, but it would’ve been exciting to see him in it for that small amount of time. 

Overall, the movie had a terrible downfall. Doctor Sleep could have succeeded a bit better if it had the spookiness that a rated R movie has, a smaller gap between the original and the sequel, and a bigger marketing campaign to help people get excited and hyped for the movie. A Jack Nicholson cameo would have made the movie come a long way too, but I understand if the director just couldn’t get Jack to show up for five minutes of the movie. 

It was one of the only horror movies that made me sleep. I don’t usually sleep that well so I guess that’s a plus side to the movie. 

If you’re interested in the movie at all, check out the trailer!

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Cassandra Purcell

Cassandra is a second-year student in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. She loves writing real-life horror stories, being anti-social, and watching American Horror Story.

Don't Mess with The Original

Psycho and The Lion King. What do these two movies have in common? Well, definitely not the genre. You see, each of these movies has a remake. Pretty exciting, right? Sadly not, considering the remakes tanked. Sucked. Bombed. Huge disappointments. 

 Since all movies were made in the ’90s, you would think that the remakes that were made in the mid-2000s would be up to standards and expectations. Of course, movie industries want to make it apply to this day and age, making the movies better than what they once were. In the end, the films didn’t meet people’s expectations.

Have you had your favourite movie(s) ruined by terrible remakes? A couple of mines have, and if I’m being honest, it hurts my non-existent soul when I see a mockery being made of my favourite film. 

When I was little, I fell in love with the 1995 Jumanji movie. I loved the whole concept of a board game being magical, and how every turn they took, something bad would happen, and how every threat was real. In 2017 when the Jumanji remake came out, I was excited, and I wanted to see how they would recreate the classic movie. After watching it, I felt upset that they turned it into a videogame. I know it’s just me; Rotten Tomatoes says people liked it more than the classic. 

Enough about me and my unpopular opinion, let’s talk more about what the directors did wrong with these films. 

Psycho (1960) is the classic black-and-white movie that Alfred Hitchcock gave the universe. It’s known for the iconic shower scene where Norman Bates stabs Marion Crane when she’s showering. The whole movie is truly a work of art, but I wish I could say the same about Gus Van Sant’s revamp version. In the remake, Vince Vaughn didn’t quite capture the same creepy and mysterious factor of Norman Bates as Anthony Perkins did in the original.

The Lion King has been a Disney fan favourite since it came out in 1994. The animated classic is hands down the best childhood movie there is. When the live-action remake of The Lion King came out in 2019, fans hated it. Mainly because of the emotion, or lack thereof. With the animated version, if a sad scene happened, the viewers felt the raw emotion and cried at those real sad times. All the remake gave the audience was live-action animals. Nothing else.

There are a handful of terrible remakes that put the original movie to shame. I could ramble on and on about others’ opinions as well as my own, but then, I would bore you, and all your attention would be lost. My final note is to the entire movie industry. Try harder and stop disappointing movie lovers.

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Cassandra Purcell

Cassandra is a second-year student in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. She loves writing real-life horror stories, being anti-social, and watching American Horror Story.