User blog:Sirin of the Void/PE Proposal - Sebastian Caine


 * Original: https://villains.fandom.com/f/p/3179493162221867428

Okay, so I actually planned on proposing this one, but one of the TV Tropes guys just beat me to it, so I'm actually going to copy/paste the proposal from there to here. Proposal written by ElfinLiedFan90.

Hollow Man is a 2000 sci-fi thriller loosely based on The Invisible Man staring Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, and Josh Brolin. The plot concerns Dr. Sebastian Caine (Bacon) as he leads government funded experiments on an invisibility serum with a team including his ex-girlfriend Dr. Linda McKay and her current boyfriend Matt Kensington (Brolin). Things go south, so let's get to our Decoy Protagonist turned antagonist Sebastian Caine.

Who is he ? What does he do ?
Sebastian Caine is a brilliant, charismatic, if eccentric and egotistical scientist leading a project to develop an invisibility serum and a counter serum. The film opens with him pulling a breakthrough (as well as peeping on his neighbour played by Rhona Mitra) before he and his team successfully test the counter serum on a gorilla they previously made invisible. Instead of reporting the success to the military and his mentor Dr. Kramer, he lies about it being a failure and decides to move the tests onto human experiments unbeknownst to his superiors. Sebastian has the invisibility serum tested on himself which is also a success but he is required to stay in the facility for further observations and tests. It ain't no biggie to him as he spends him time pulling pranks with his team and scaring them...and then molesting a Sarah (one of the doctors he has working for him, and in charge of monitoring him) while she sleeps...and spying another one of his workers Janice while she's using the bathroom.

After ten days of being invisible and repeated failed reverse serum tests, Sebastian gets frustrated and leaves the facility back to his apartment. When he notices Rhona Mitra again, he decides "Why not ? Who will know ?" sneaks into her apartment and rapes her after toying with her (fun fact there's a deleted scene where we see the actual rape and aftermath as opposed to the discretion shot in the final film - test audiences didn't like it because it made it hard for them to place themselves in Sebastian's shoes). Hearing that Sebastian left the facility, an angry Linda warns him that if he does anything reckless like this again she will tell the committee that he's been working behind their backs. Ignoring this, Sebastian tampers with a thermal security camera so he can sneak out again, this time discovering Linda and Matt's secret relationship. In a fit of anger, Sebastian returns to the facility, opens the cage that he has a dog in and smashes the dog to death.

Realizing he's been out again, Linda and Matt go to inform Kramer about what Sebastian's been up to. Before Kramer can contact anyone important, Sebastian lured Kramer outside and drowns him in his swimming pool, before deciding to kill off his team. Sebastian disables the phones, security and elevator codes and starts off by killing Janice, cutting another guys jugular and leaving him to bleed to death, and stabbing another with a pipe. He overpowers Sarah when she tries to shoot him with a tranq dart, and twists her wrist to shoot herself before breaking her neck.

Finally Sebastian locks Linda and Matt in a rapidly cooling freezer to leave them to die, before setting up the facility to explode. Despite nearly freezing to death, Linda escapes with quick thinking and a makeshift super magnet, before going off to confront Sebastian with a makeshift flamethrower before he can escape. After burning Sebastian, and tricking him into electrocuting himself, Matt and Linda make their escape by climbing the up the disabled elevator shaft as the place goes up in flames. Sebastian climbs back after them to try to try to kill Linda, who overpowers him and kicks him into the exploding inferno while she and Matt climb out to safety.

Heinous standard
Sets it as the only villain with half a dozen brutal murders as well as rape and molestation under his belt.

Redeeming Qualities or Freudian Excuse ?
Now one argument that could be used against him was that the serum made him go crazy as a side effect, which is theorized by Matt when he notices Sebastian's increasingly erratic behaviour. Thing is ? We don't see any actual proof of that and as a matter of fact we see proof of the contrary. It was thought because the gorilla subjected to the experiments shown aggressive behaviour that maybe it had something to do with Sebastian going mad, but I didn't see that as so much proof as much as an aggressive animal like a gorilla might be a little unhinged after being subjected to experiments. That said, we do see Sebastian's increasing frustration as his attempts at a reverse serum fail and having to spend ten days being monitored in the facility. Besides that, later on Matt asks Sebastian if it was the serum or the power that made him snap, and we get quite a bit of evidence it was the latter.

Now prior to this transformation, Sebastian...wasn't the nicest guy; sure he seemed to be at least Affably Evil in that he acted like a charismatic and sarcastic friend to his colleagues - there's even a sequence at the start where you could call him "the fun kind of asshole" (when he and Matt make something of a game in trying to catch a gorilla that's gotten loose and made a bet on it). One thing that isn't subtle is his extreme ego, something he is unabashed about, sarcastically comparing himself to God and admits to a lack of empathy regarding animal tests. Yes he does Pet the Dog early in the movie but then he goes and smashes the dog to death. In fact his bruised ego is pretty much what finally made him snap which was when he found out Linda and Matt where together for which he felt like a scorned lover.

But even at the beginning we see signs that he was a little unhinged just really good at keeping himself in check and by the third act is just giving in to all his dark impulses. All that molesting his female colleagues (and part of his "pranks") and spying on Rhona Mitra was well before his Sanity Slippage and he deals with his first night of "freedom" he rapes Mitra's character because "Why not ?" Also just before he experiments on himself he makes an awkward attempt of a joke about Superman raping Wonder Woman. During the first third of the movie, he does seem to care about his staff to some degree and implies he wants to reconcile with Linda but not only is that all out the window by the climax, we still have those hints of darkness within his character.

And for the record, his descent into villainy isn't played for tragedy or anything - none of the characters sympathize with him as the film goes on especially when he goes off the deep end.

As I planned to propose him, I vote "Yes".