Kevin Wendell Crumb is a man who suffers from an extreme case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, and he has 23 separate personalities residing in his mind. Even though Kevin means no evil, his other personalities are each rather vicious in their own way. His 24th personality, "The Beast", a result of Kevin's job in the zoo and a combination of the animals there, is the film's true main antagonist, which is revealed near the end of the film. His other two most prominent personalities (and believers of "The Beast") are Dennis, an obsessive, cold, and tough man, who acts as the film's main antagonist for most of the film, and Patricia, a female persona. While she is sweet and motherly most of the time, Patricia is secretly evil and she acts as the film's tertiary antagonist.
Biography
Early Life
When Kevin was a child, his father was killed in the Eastrail 177 train accident, leaving him to live with his abusive, obsessive-compulsive mother. As he was abused, he began to develop multiple personalities as a defense mechanism, ultimately developing twenty-three individual personalities, each of which spontaneously took control over his body and subjugated the original Kevin. When he grew up, he worked at the Philadelphia Zoo, and one day, two girls approached him and played a prank on him, taking his hands and putting them under the girls' shirts, on their breasts, before running away giggling. This left Kevin confused and vengeful, and possibly contributed to some of the appetites of 'Dennis'.
Kidnapping of Casey, Claire and Marcia
At the beginning of the film, Kevin attacks Casey, Claire and Marcia, knocking out Claire's father and abducting the three girls. He takes them to his home, where he confines them to a room, where he perplexes and frightens them with the demonstration of his several personalities - however, when he becomes Hedwig (a 9-year-old boy with a lisp), Casey tries to befriend him. Throughout the film, mainly through the discussions between Kevin and his psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher, it is established that the usually dominant personality is Barry, who tries to subjugate the others and keep them from staying 'in the light'. However two of the other personalities (Patricia, a woman, and Dennis, an Obsessive-Compulsive man with a sexual appetite) begin to fight with Barry for dominance.
Patricia talking to Casey Cooke, Claire Benoit and Marcia
When Claire tries to escape the room through fresh drywall, 'Dennis' corners her and then locks her in a separate room on her own, and when 'Patricia' dines with Casey and Marcia she forbids Claire from attending them for what she has done. When Marcia attacks her and tries to make her own escape, she outpaces her and locks her also in a separate room, dividing all three girls from one another and worsening the trauma they experience at their hands. Casey, resourceful and used to being abused by an adult, befriends 'Hedwig', and tries to influence him. Hedwig excitedly warns the girls about 'the Beast', a malevolent 24th personality with incredible abilities. He also reveals to Casey that there is a window in his room - she perceives it as a potential escape route. However, when he shows her the 'window', it is shown to be a hand-drawn picture of a window.
Kevin talking to Dr. Karen Fletcher
She grabs a functional walkie-talkie nearby and radios for help before being subdued by 'Dennis'. Barry sends several email messages for help to Dr. Fletcher, revealing Barry to have felt threatened by the bid for control by Dennis and Patricia. When Dr. Fletcher approaches and tries to reason with Kevin, she realises that he has kidnapped the girls and tries to convince him that what he is doing is wrong. 'Dennis' drugs her and locks her up. Enacting a sort of ritual, he then buys flowers and visits a train car, before becoming 'the Beast'. Dissolving into an animalistic mentality, he goes on a rampage. When she recovers, Dr. Fletcher writes down Kevin's full name, knowing that it will be the singular way of subduing him once he transforms into the Beast. The girls, in the meantime, try to escape from their confinements.
Ritual of The Beast
Denis walking down the street
Returning to his hideout, 'the Beast' confronts Dr. Fletcher. She tries stabbing him with a knife, but the knife shatters. The Beast then murders her, demonstrating incredible physical strength. He then proceeds to savagely kill Marcia and then Claire, while Casey stumbles upon Dr. Fletcher's corpse as well as her instructional note. When the Beast closes in on her, demonstrating the ability to climb up walls, Casey uses Kevin's real name to call him to the light. The Beast is briefly tamed, and the actual Kevin (who has been restrained for at least 3 years by the other personalities, and has no memory of what he has done between then and now) is shown to be horrified by what he has done, and begs her to kill him with a shotgun before the Beast can return. However, the Beast is alerted when Kevin's other personalities desperately try to defend themselves. As the Beast reawakens, it engages in a climactic and violent showdown with Casey. Casey fights the Beast, shooting him several times with the shotgun, but it proves to be superhumanly tolerant to pain.
Escape from the Philadelphia Zoo
Kevin becoming The Beast.
At the climax of the fight, the Beast voices his maniacal plans to rid the world of the 'untouched' (as in, the people who he feels have never suffered pain or discomfort, unlike him). Casey is cornered in a cage, but the Beast bends the bars with its bare hands and is about to attack her when it notices the scars on her body from her abuse at the hands of her uncle. It then rejoices in the fact that she is 'pure' and 'more evolved' - apparently like himself. Deciding that abused people are exceptional, the Beast spares Casey and flees, while Casey is eventually discovered and rescued by Kevin's co-workers at the Philadelphia Zoo. Recovering from the battle, Patricia, Dennis and Hedwig speculate in awe at the power of the Beast, marveling at what it was capable of doing. The personalities voice their plans to change the world, and await the next feeding of 'the Beast' now known in the media as "The Horde".
Personalities
- Hedwig: A nine-year-old boy with several compulsive behaviors, such as proclaiming that he has red socks, crawling on bent knees, and ending sentences with 'et cetera'. He loves to dance crazily, draw, and he is disciplined by the other personalities. He befriends Casey. Hedwig is rather gullible as a result of his innocence and naivety, easily baited by Casey at one point and cowed by some of the other personalities, very few of whom truly respect him. He is awed by the power of the Beast because of his childish nature and his desire to not be dismissed and made fun of anymore. He is largely subservient to the other personalities (despite his ability to 'take the light' at will), especially Patricia (whom he calls 'Miss Patricia'). He speaks with a lateral lisp.
- Barry: The original dominant personality in Kevin's head - calm, level-headed to some extent, and working to control the other personalities and to protect Kevin. Barry is the personality that is used to communicate with Dr. Fletcher, but he is exploited by Dennis in the latter's bid for control over Kevin's head. He's a charismatic, somewhat effeminate male, with an incredible talent for fashion and design. It is implied that he is a very commanding individual (described at one point as an extroverted leader).
- Dennis: One of the more disturbing personalities, Dennis is cold, temperamental and has a perverted liking for watching young girls dance naked. He demonstrates traits of obsessive-compulsive disorder and a firm, sometimes violent, tendency towards cleanliness and order (most likely duplicated from Kevin's abusive mother to help Kevin survive in the household). Dennis is devious, being shown to have been masquerading as Barry since the very beginning of the film. However, Dennis' efforts to conceal himself aren't perfect, since he overextends himself in trying to convince Dr. Fletcher that he is Barry and is unable to ultimately conceal his OCD.
- Patricia: A sophisticated, orderly, polite woman who has considerable command over some of the other personalities (claiming that the others 'listen' to her). Patricia is very disciplined towards the other personalities, and towards other people, and is also very calm - she assures Casey, Claire and Marcia that Dennis will not touch her because they are to serve a greater purpose than Dennis's desires. Patricia is revealed to be surprisingly dangerous in her own right, as evidenced by her calm (but extremely threatening) way of dealing with Marcia by soothing her verbally whilst holding a knife to her stomach. Patricia is a perfectionist, reacting angrily when she cuts a sandwich in awkward halves before doing so again.
- The Beast: By far the most dangerous, hostile and terrifying of all the personalities, the Beast is the 24th identity that resides in Kevin's mind. The Beast is a malevolent figure, idolized by Dennis, Patricia and Hedwig, who all awaited his arrival. The Beast is extremely violent to the point of savagery, having an unquenchable lust for human flesh, and an intense perspective that the rest of the world are impure because they haven't suffered like he has. The Beast possesses superhuman strength, speed, agility, stamina, invulnerability and pain tolerance - it can rip metal bars apart and snap a human body in half with its bare hands. It also has the ability to climb walls using even the slightest grip. Finally, the Beast is incredibly hard to kill, since bullets are virtually ineffective against it and knives shatter against its skin.
- Jade: She appeared on a video log and briefly appeared after Casey called Kevin into the light. Jade seems to act like a typical teenage girl with a foul mouth. She apparently has diabetes and needs to take insulin shots for it.
- Orwell: He appears briefly when Casey calls Kevin into the light. Orwell is an introverted, highly intelligent man whose verbosity tends to overshadow his intended meaning.
There are 16 other personalities that are not shown, but the names of which are seen on Kevin's computer:
- Heinrich
- Norma
- Goddard
- Bernice
- Polly
- Luke
- Rakel
- Felicia
- Ansel
- Jelin
- Kat
- B.T
- Samuel
- Mary Reynolds
- Ian
- Mr. Pritchard
Barry
Jade
Orwell
Dennis
Hedwig
Patricia
The Beast
Powers and Abilities
Psychologically-Influenced Physiology: Kevin's original power, that gives birth to his 24th Personality's powers and all the traits of his other 23 personality, is a very peculiar ability to influence his own body based on the personality that inhabited it. For example, if the current personality that inhabit his body have diabetes, then his body will undergo changes in order to have that trait including the need for insulin shot. It is unknown how far this ability extend or its true limitation. However, it can be noted that this ability doesn't allow the Horde to outwardly change his appearance or sex, since none of his female personalities manifest their sex-related physiology.
The Beast's Powers
The beast possess the powers of various predator at the zoo that Kevin worked at including but not limited to: Carnivorous appetite of a tiger, wall-crawling like spider, and thick Rhino skin.
- Wall-Crawling: Kevin, as 'The Beast', can adhere to walls, ceilings, and other surfaces in order to scale them. This ability allows him to stick to almost any surface when willing himself to, as physical contact with said surfaces creates a locking connection necessary to support his body, even when he is inverted above the ground.
- Invulnerability: He has incredible resilience to injury. It is believed that he is virtually impervious to physical injury or hurt. His body and tissues are far more resistant to damage and stresses than any ordinary human being (except, perhaps, for David Dunn). He has withstood physical traumas and shocks that would have seriously injured or killed a normal human being outright. His unique resilience also apparently translates to granting him a resistance to conventional diseases or viruses as well. He can take a shotgun blast because his body is simply too powerful to be affected in this fashion.
- Super-Strength: Kevin possesses superhuman strength when transformed into the Beast. He can, with effort, bend thick metal bars and crush a human being by squeezing hard enough.
Vulnerabilities
- Name: By calling out the name of "Kevin Wendell Crumb", Kevin, the original and core personality, will take over "The Light". This however, seems to be temporary as once Kevin is in control, The Horde will then force him out of "The Light".
- Light: Coinciding with the concept of "The Light", Dr. Ellie Staple came up with a system of powerful LED lights in order to control "The Horde" that when activated, with brightly flash and force Kevin to switch personalities.
Relationships
Family
- Mother
- Father †
Enemies
- Casey Cooke - Prisoner
- Dr. Karen Fletcher † - Psychologist, Victim
- Claire Benoit † - Prisoner, Victim
- Marcia † - Prisoner, Victim
- Mr. Benoit - Attempted Victim
- David Dunn/The Overseer
Trivia
- Considering that Split exists in the exact same world as M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable (which is essentially an origin story for a superhero), Split can be considered to be Kevin's origin story as a supervillain. Shyamalan himself has confirmed that his next film will serve as a sequel to both Split and Unbreakable.
- A fan theory speculates that Elijah Price will be Kevin's nemesis in the next film of Shyamalan's trilogy which until now consists of Unbreakable and Split.
- He will appear in 2019 film Glass as the main antagonist alongside Elijah Price.