This page is for characters from the 2016 horror film Hush. Spoilers will be unmarked, so be wary.
Characters
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Maddie
Maddie Young
Played By: Kate Siegel
A deaf and mute novelist working on a second novel. When a mysterious killer starts terrorizing her home, she must use all her wits to survive the night.
- Achilles' Heel: Her inability to hear or speak.
- Action Survivor: She's not a hypercompetent Final Girl in the vein of You're Next, but rather a regular person forced to rely on wits and willpower to survive.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Starts employing this near the end while trying to figure out how to win, complete with alternate scenarios playing out onscreen.
- Combat Pragmatist / Improvised Weapon: The killer is stronger and better-armed than Maddie, but she knows how to use her territory and household appliances to her advantage.
- Determinator: Maddie almost loses her life at several points in the film, first from massive blood loss and then from strangulation, but she triumphs in the end.
- Handicapped Badass: Deaf-mute and able to fight off a serial killer.
- The Hermit: She lives in isolation in a secluded woodland house, with only a cat and a couple of neighbors for company.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Her deafness is arguably what lets her survive the night, as her vulnerability makes the killer turn her death into a game, instead of just killing her quickly.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: She spends most of the film completely terrified of the Man, but after John dies, she realizes she can't run, hide, or wait, and her only way out is to kill the Serial Killer. After this, she's clearly no longer afraid (at least not enough to hender her) and devotes herself completely to putting him down and surviving. She does.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Maddie pretends to be more incapacitated than she actually is, luring the killer close enough to spray bug spray in his eyes.
The Man
"The Man"
Played By: John Gallagher Jr.
A white-masked figure wielding a crossbow and combat knife. He kills Sarah and then makes a game out of tormenting Maddie.
- Ax-Crazy: Naturally since he's a serial killer motivated entirely by sadism.
- Consummate Liar: Is able to effortlessly lie to John about being a cop, and even manages to craft pretty good excuses when John starts poking holes in his story. If not for the earring John spots (and his injury), he might have been able to get away with it.
- Crazy Survivalist: He has shades of this, with his crossbow and combat knife. The implication one can draw is that he lives in isolated areas so he can kill in privacy.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Maddie drives a corkscrew through his throat and tears it open, causing him to die in wet, bloody, gagging agony. He deserves every second of it, especially as he killed John in a similar manner.
- Deathly Unmasking: Reversed. He takes his mask off less than an hour into the movie to let Maddie know he won’t let her live to identify him. He keeps it off for the remainder.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: He's this of a traditional sociopathic slasher villain. He's every bit as murderous and psychotic, but lacks their borderline (or sometimes literal) supernatural powers. Thus, while still dangerous, he's not a nigh unstoppable force of nature and no stronger or tougher than a normal human would be. This is shown when each time Maddie injures him, he reacts realistically and is still noticeably hindered by them. He also lacks any form of super strength, and flat out admits John would've beat him in a straight fight, and John nearly kills him while bleeding out. He also behaves more like a real life sociopath rather than a cunning schemer and mastermind, complete with poor impulse control that causes him to make dumb mistakes.
- Dented Iron: He's able to keep going, but he's just a normal guy. Thus each injury he takes does more and more to hinder him and he screams out in pain each time.
- Dirty Coward: He's only confident when he's certain he has the upper hand. When Maddie starts to fight back, he becomes more and more unnerved and in his final moments, after he realizes Maddie has driven a cork screw into his throat, he is genuinely terrified.
- Evil Gloating: He would be much more successful as a killer if he didn't try and turn every murder into a game.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: He has a boyishly handsome appearance which sharply contrasts his vile sadism and sociopathic nature.
- Fatal Flaw: His pride and his sadism. He's absolutely certain that Maddie doesn't have a chance against him and so takes every opportunity he can to torment her which gives her the opportunity to turn the tables against him.
- For the Evulz: A consistent flaw. He drags his killings out for fun, even when it would be wiser to just shoot them. The way he draws out his meeting with John instead of just killing him immediately (he even has him on the ground with his hands up!) is the biggest example.
- Hate Sink: Unlike most slashers, you probably won't catch yourself rooting for him. He has no real charisma, super strength, cunning, bravery or other admirable qualities that made past slashers so iconic. All he is is a stupid, reckless, cowardly, sociopath who you're gonna want to see get his comeuppance.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: His decision to make a game of killing Maddie is ultimately the very thing that allows her to put up a fight against him and ultimately kill him.
- Karmic Death: He dies in the exact same way as his victim, John.
- Malevolent Masked Man: As befitting of a serial killer in a horror movie. Subverted as he takes the mask off less than halfway into the film in order to taunt Maddie.
- No Name Given: Credited simply as "The Man".
- Pride: His fatal flaw. He’s right to think he has every advantage over Maddie, but he lets this cloud his judgement to the point that he doesn’t ever take her seriously.
- Oh, Crap!: He's clearly shocked and scared once he realizes Maddie has driven a corkscrew into his throat.
- Sadist: This is his whole motivation for what he does and also one of his major flaws as he can't help toying with Maddie when it would be far easier to just kill her.
- Slashed Throat: How the killer kills John, and also how the killer himself later dies.
- Smug Snake: Probably his biggest flaw. He could easily kill Maddie on multiple instances but his cruelty and confidence mean he won't until he's tortured her as much as he can.
- The Sociopath: Big time. He has absolutely no empathy, his actions are motivated entirely by sadism and thrill-seeking, has almost no impulse control and he has a massively outsized ego which leads him to believe Maddie doesn't have a hope against him.
- Stupid Evil: He draws out his torment of Maddie for as long as possible, constantly gloating, which gives her plenty of time to come up with ways to outsmart him and, eventually, kill him.
- Tattooed Crook: Has a tattoo of what looks like a spiraling snake on his neck.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Rather than the usual hulking, borderline deformed brutes usually seen in slasher films, he's a perfectly ordinary looking, even somewhat good-looking, guy with an average build who you wouldn't think twice about if you pass him on the street.
- To the Pain: Explicitly says he won’t kill Maddie until she’s begging for it.
- Too Dumb to Live: His poor impulse control and tendency to treat murder as a game cause him to drastically underestimate his opponents.
- Villainous Breakdown: He spends most of the movie smug and in control, but as Maddie manages to counter attack in several places and actually meaningfully injure him, he gets more and more frustrated and furious. By the end he's so furious he's singlemindedly devoted to strangling Maddie to death and fails to notice the corkscrew in arms reach. His last moments are spent realizing he's dying and clearly afraid.
- White Mask of Doom: The killer's initial appearance.
Sarah
Sarah Greene
Played By: Samantha Sloyan
Maddie’s next door neighbor and good friend.
- Developing Doomed Characters: She’s the first person we see killed.
- Fatal Family Photo: A photo of her with Maddie is one of the first things we see. Given the genre, it’s not likely she’s going to make it after that.
- Nice Girl: Praises Maddie's book and puts the effort into learning sign language even though Maddie can already understand her by reading her lips.
- Sacrificial Lamb: The character who dies first to establish the killer's threat.
John
John Stanley
Played By: Michael Trucco
Sarah’s live-in boyfriend, who comes looking for Sarah when she isn’t at home.
- Developing Doomed Characters: As one of four onscreen characters in the movie, the odds aren’t strong for him.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Spends his last moments choking the Man out. It doesn’t work, but he tries. It does, however, buy Maddie enough time to pull herself together and get dangerous.
- Hunk: Tall, handsome, and muscular. Important because the Man notes that he wouldn’t win a straight fight with him and has to resort to trickery.
- Muscles Are Meaningful: He is easily bigger than the Man, which gives him the strength advantage over the killer even when he is dying.
- Nice Guy: He’s friendly, law-abiding, and spends his last moments trying to save his girlfriend’s friend after realizing he’s doomed.
- Spotting the Thread: Is able to pick apart the Man’s story about being a policeman (where’s his uniform? etc) and notices his girlfriend’s earring fall out of his hand. He thinks through it enough that he’s about to end the fight altogether before getting killed.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: With his throat already cut and bleeding out, John lies down and seems to die, letting the killer lower his guard before suddenly leaping at him and putting him in a choke hold.
