yolo

(His name’s not actually “Cale Erendreich”, this is a fake name. We are never told his first name, though we’re given his true last name, which is “Valkenberg”.)

I thought that the movie was interesting, and afterwards, I found that I had a lot of questions, particularly ones involving Cale/Valkenberg.

I asked myself:

What’s wrong with him?

Why does he do what he does?

What does he feel for his victims?

What is Sean, for Cale?

You would think that the last question would have an obvious answer, that he’s a victim, just like the others - but I’ve come to the conclusion that this is actually not the case. He’s not like Valkenberg’s regular victims, and I will explain why further into the analysis.

————-Cale Erendreich/Valkenberg Character Analysis————–

Starting with the first question.

What’s wrong with him?

To answer this, we have to take a look into what he has.

. PSYCHOPATHY . OCD . PTSD

Being a serial killer, to begin, I think it’s obvious that he is a PSYCHOPATH.

Psychopathy.

Psychopathy is characterized by the absence of empathy and the blunting of other effective states. Callousness, detachment and a lack of empathy enable psychopaths to be highly manipulative. Psychopaths can appear normal, even charming. Underneath, they lack any semblance of conscience. Their antisocial nature inclines them often to criminality.

He very clearly is suffering from OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER, and this is the main reason that he does what he does. He craves and strives for perfection and order. He has a desperate need for control.

OCD.

“OCD obsessions are repeated, persistent and unwanted thoughts, urges or images that are intrusive and cause distress or anxiety. You might try to ignore them or get rid of them by performing a compulsive behavior or ritual. These obsessions typically intrude when you’re trying to think of or do other things.

Obsessions often have themes to them, such as:

   . Fear of contamination or dirt    . Needing things orderly and symmetrical    . Aggressive or horrific thoughts about harming yourself or others    . Unwanted thoughts, including aggression, or sexual or religious subjects

Cale’s theme is "Needing things orderly and symmetrical”.

(I originally questioned whether Cale was apologizing to Detective Wayne Bannyon for having seen him during a moment of weakness where he couldn’t stop himself from fixing the tool, or if he was apologizing to Detective Wayne Bannyon for having seen the tool out of place. But when I thought about it, I realized it was the former. He was apologizing to Detective Wayne Bannyon for having witnessed his OCD, because he originally tried to leave it there… he didn’t WANT to fix it in front of Detective Wayne Bannyon, but he turned around to fix it because he HAD to. If he were apologizing for the tool having been out of place, he wouldn’t have tried NOT to fix it. His fixing of the tool was something he didn’t WANT to do, especially in front of the detective, but something that he HAD to do because of his intense need for order.)

It is also clear that he is dealing with symptoms relating to POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER.

PTSD.

Symptoms may include nightmares or unwanted memories of the trauma, avoidance of situations that bring back memories of the trauma, heightened reactions, anxiety, or depressed mood.

In the movie, we are given snippets of Cale’s childhood. The moments we see it are actually moments that Cale’s reliving it.

There’s one scene in the movie that after being shown the snippet, we see Cale awaken from sleep in a very panicked state.

He becomes angry and overwhelmed and ends up nearly crying, gun in hand, as he yells at his victim (Katie), telling her this:

Aside from these known disorders, he also has a desperate need for control (which I feel is a part of the OCD).

HIS PAST

Now, all of his mental disorders were created by the traumatic event. We are told what took place during this traumatic event, by FBI Agent Olivia Fuller.

Agent Fuller: Valkenberg was an only child, billionaire father obsessed with his prized horses.

FBI Supervisor: So the kid killed the horse trainer to get back at the dad?

Agent Fuller: No, he was only 14, she was in her 20s. He had a crush on her. Tried to impress her by breaking a wild colt before it was ready, ended up killing the horse instead, and when the trainer threatened to tell his father, he killed her.

FBI Supervisor: So, now instead of breaking horses…

Agent Fuller: He breaks people.

So he tried to break in a wild horse in an attempt to impress the horse trainer, who he had a crush on. He accidentally killed the horse, and when the trainer went to tell his father, he killed her to ensure she couldn’t.

And this leads us to the next question…

Why does he do what he does?

The traumatic events mentioned above are the reasons that he does what he does. So we have to look at his past and further analyze it to try and figure out why he did it to begin with, and why he became a serial killer because of it.

So he killed the trainer because she was going to tell his father that he’d accidentally killed one of his horses. So it was fear that pushed Cale into killing the trainer - he was afraid of what his father might do or think once finding out he’d killed one of his horses.

So why was he so afraid of his father finding out, to the point that he was willing to murder someone for it?

Was his father abusive?

There was no mention of his father being abusive, which I feel would have been mentioned if it’d been the case, because it would have explained more why Cale does what he does. But it’s never mentioned and so because of that I feel it’s not the case.

We are told that the father was obsessed with his horses; it’s likely that Cale thought that if his father knew he’d killed the horse, that he would both get in trouble and that his father would be disappointed in him.

It’s probable that Cale wasn’t given the attention or the love he craved and that he feared his father finding out that he’d killed the horse would only worsen things. I get the impression that the father cherished the horses and put them above his son.

The father isn’t in Cale’s life in the movie.

(Though there is one scene where Mitchell, one of Cale’s financial advisors or whatever he is, goes on to say “Your father told me to tell you–” before Cale interrupts him with “Those people don’t exist, I shouldn’t have to correct you!” Whether or not Cale’s father actually exists is a good question. I’m not sure whether Cale is just so far gone that he considers his father nonexistent or if his father’s actually dead. I feel it’s the former, because someone had told Mitchell to pass on a message to Cale, and he said it was his father, so who else could it possibly be? There wouldn’t be anyone contacting Mitchell pretending to be Cale’s father. It would make more sense that Cale said he doesn’t exist, because he doesn’t FOR HIM. In which case, I think it’d be made clear that he and his father don’t see one another or really have much of a relationship, if a relationship at all. Cale shows obvious aggression during this moment, which tells me that he does not like his father. This, for me, is proof that they most likely never had a very good relationship to begin with. Again, his father is the REASON that Cale killed the trainer - fear of his father finding out.)

So this is what we know so far.

He accidentally killed the horse. He didn’t want to kill the horse. He didn’t want to kill the woman. These were accidents. This I’ve deduced because, for one, we’re told he’d not meant to kill the horse. This is clearly stated. He was JUST trying to tame it.

We do know he killed the woman deliberately, because he had a reason to; he didn’t want her to tell on him. But I don’t think it was planned or that he had much time to think on it before he did it. I think, in his panic, he accidentally killed her. If he’d had time to think on it, and had planned it out ahead of time, it wouldn’t have traumatized him, because it’d have been deliberate. He wouldn’t be having nightmares about the memory if it’d been deliberate. I feel that it traumatized him because he didn’t actually mean to kill her and that it was just something that happened in the heat of the moment due to his fear.

So both, in a sense, were accidents. Both killing the horse, and killing the trainer.

He lost control.

And this is why I feel he now has a desperate need for order and control. His lack of control in those moments is what created his need for control now. He had no control over breaking in the horse (we know this because he accidentally killed it) and he had no control over what he did with the trainer (we know this because he killed her, most likely in the heat of the moment due to his fear of her telling his father on him).

So he’s basically trying to take those traumatic moments where he had no control, and recreating them so that he DOES have control.

He breaks in the humans because he failed to break in the horse, and he can’t handle the memory of that lack of control.

Then there’s the question, why is he using humans to gain that control instead of horses?

Is it because he failed to break in the horse and is afraid to try again, afraid of failing again?

Is it because he, for some reason, combined his memories of killing the horse and the woman because the events took place so closely together?

Now this brings us to another question. Why does he kill the humans once he’s tamed them? He says once he’s fixed them that they’re allowed to be free, but his version of freedom is murdering them; throwing them in a ditch with lye.

I feel his reason for killing them is the same reason he tries to tame them. He’s trying to have control over the situations in which he’d had no control. He’s trying to rewrite his history and the traumatic events.

I imagine the thought process would be something like this.

“I’m not killing them because I’ve lost control. I have all the control. I want to kill them. I am killing them on purpose.”

It’s all about regaining control over the situation.

What does he feel for his victims?

We know that Cale’s victims are special to him. He says in the movie that the cabin where he takes them, where he ultimately kills them, is very special. Nobody but his victims are allowed there. It’s only the ones who have “that spark” in them that he considers special. The special ones are the ones that remind him of wild horses that need taming.

He only cares for the ones that have that spark because that means they require his assistance. It’s not that he loves the spark. He hates the spark (loathes disorder).

What he loves is the fact that those with the spark need correcting. He loves (and NEEDS) to be able to create order out of chaos.

Now, all of Cale’s victims have been female. Those in the photos that Agent Fuller showed and those that were in the ditch were all female.

The question is, why are his victims female?

Again, it goes back to his past, where he killed the female trainer. The trainer was a 20-something year old female that he had a crush on. She was his first kill and she is part of the reason, if not the main reason, that he has PTSD.

He combined the killing of the horse and the killing of her. The gender of the horse didn’t matter. HER gender did. He chooses female victims because the trainer was female, not because the horse was female (we’re never told the gender of the horse. I feel we would have been informed if it’d been relevant). Again it’s back to the fact that he’s recreating the event, but in a way where he didn’t/doesn’t lose control. He’s killing them because he wants to, not because he’s lost control and panicked.

Now does this mean that he has crushes on his victims, considering he’s recreating with them the murder of the trainer, who he did in fact have a crush on?

Or are the victims JUST horses to him?

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is in fact the case. He is not romantically or sexually interested in his victims. In fact, when Katie removed her towel and revealed her naked form to Cale, he was repulsed.

His victims are projects, they are horses, not love interests. He does not have a crush on them, the way he’d had a crush on the trainer.

Before we continue, I want to talk more about love interests.

In the movie, Cale’s single. I get the impression he’s never been married (it’d be difficult to keep a marriage going when you’re a serial killer). He didn’t say he was divorced, he didn’t say he was married, he merely said he was single but that he “has dates”. He says “the women he dates”, meaning there are multiple, and that he doesn’t really date just one at a time. They seem to come and go and it’s not only heavily implied, but almost completely canonical that he’s using these women he dates as a cover. The impression given is that he doesn’t have any real feelings for the women he’s dating and that they’re only there to aid him in his disguise of being a “regular guy”.

Here is Cale using the guise of having a woman over to deter these police officers and prevent them from coming into his house:

He doesn’t seem to be capable of normal, actual love - in true, psychopathic fashion.

What is Sean, for Cale?

In the beginning, Cale just wanted to kill Sean, because Sean knew what he was doing, and was onto him.

But as soon as Cale realized that Sean had that SPARK, he changed his mind, and decided instead that he wanted to correct him, as he does with his other victims. He wanted to tame the wild horse.

(Cale’s reaction to Sean is actually rather erotic. Not only does he bite his tongue but he moans deep in his throat during this scene.)

EIther way, I came to notice that Sean is different from Cale’s usual victims.

What exactly makes Sean different?

For one, Sean is not female. I found that interesting. All it means to me is that Sean just so happened to be special enough that Cale was willing to break the routine for the sake of correcting him (that in itself means a lot because his routine and the order is everything to Cale).

The only other males Cale killed were Derek (Sean’s best friend) and Derek’s father (Cale killed them in an attempt to make it look like a murder-suicide; to make it look like Derek killed his parents and then himself). He did this only to upset Sean and had not actually been interested in correcting Derek.

In fact, Cale says to Derek: “I honestly don’t know what he (Sean) sees in you. You’re beyond correction.” before killing him.

He didn’t see the spark in Derek.

I find the statement interesting in a number of ways. This was Cale wondering why Sean was bothering with a horse (Derek) that can’t be corrected.

Which brings us to the next point - Cale actually considered Sean an equal.

None of his other victims were equals; he was clearly in control over them (that was the whole point). But with Sean, Cale actually says: “Finally, somebody has earned the right to play in my sandbox!”

Originally, Cale was just going to kill Sean, to get rid of him. But as soon as he noticed the spark, he changed his mind. That’s when he began to look at Sean like he was another victim. Someone to correct. A wild horse to tame.

Or is he something more?

Sean manages to get a screenshot of Cale at Derek’s house after Cale had killed him. He was preparing to tattle on Cale, to get Cale in trouble.

Sound familiar?

This is when I realized that Sean is, for Cale, not the horse, but the trainer.

The FBI, the police, are Cale’s father. Sean is the trainer, and Katie is the wild horse.

Remember this and take it into consideration:

“I decide the chaos, I create the order. Not you (Katie, the horse), not him (Sean, the trainer)! Understand!?”

His past is being brought back up because Sean is in fact the trainer in Cale’s mind and she was what created the PTSD more than anything. In his mind, he’s being forced to relive the traumatic event.

With Sean being, in Cale’s eyes, the trainer, it starts making sense. This is why he’s not like Cale’s usual victims - because he’s not a horse, he’s the trainer. Sean is never strapped to a chair with horse straps, he’s never whipped, or caged like an animal.

To further prove my point, think of this. When Sean went to the abandoned house, Cale killed Katie “the horse” in front of Sean, “the trainer”. He said to him:

This is exactly as it’d happened in his childhood. He killed the horse in front of the trainer, and then he’d killed her.

There are some other parallels between Sean and the trainer. One being that Sean is also in his 20s, just as the trainer was. This was actually made clear during the scene when Cale hacks into his Facebook account. Sean’s username was SeanFalco92. 1992 being the year he was born, making him 26 in the time-frame of the movie (2018).

(Even if the movie took two years to make, he’d still be in his 20s. The point is that he’s in his twenties, just like she was.)

And another thing I noticed is that, Cale was repulsed by Katie’s nudity (who he considered a horse), but not Sean’s nudity (who he considered the trainer). Here he pretends to shoot Sean for his own entertainment (which in itself could be telling us that he does indeed view him as the trainer, who is the first person he shot).

Just more evidence towards the fact that Sean was in fact different.

What’s interesting is that, Cale was not romantically interested in the people he tried taming, the women he considered horses. But he was romantically interested in the trainer, who in the future, just so happens to be Sean. Is Sean the closest Cale came to being truly interested in another human being since the incident? There are certain scenes that seem to hold erotic undertones (such as the moaning and biting of the tongue shown above) and Cale also seems to admire Sean’s genius on a minute level…

… but he’s mostly just interested in himself. He is a psychopath, after all.

And that is all I feel was necessary to decipher in my analyzing of this character. Let me know what you think.