Eddie Gluskin

The Groom has other uses. Please see The Groom (Disambiguation) for other meanings.

"When I was a boy my mother often said to me: "Get married, son, and see how happy you will be." I have looked all over, but no girlie can I find, who seems to be just like the little girl I have in mind; I will have to look around until the right one I have found."

―Eddie Gluskin singing I Want a Girl

Eddie Gluskin, commonly known as "The Groom", was a Variant who ruthlessly pursued Waylon Park, with the intention of making him his "wife". He serves as the secondary antagonist of Outlast: Whistleblower.

Background

All that is known about Eddie Gluskin's early life is that he was sexually abused by his father and uncle. Prior to being admitted at Mount Massive Asylum, Eddie was a misogynist and a serial killer who mutilated women.

Story

Eddie Gluskin makes his first appearance at the start of the game in the Underground Lab, being forced against his will to enter one of the glass spheres in the lab to undergo painstaking restraint and experiments. Waylon Park is there working on one of the computers for debugging to allow the aforementioned experiment. Before Eddie is finally restrained, he runs up to the glass begging for help, and exclaims that Waylon has the power to stop all of it before being forced again to enter one of the glass spheres.

Much later in the game where Waylon can pick up the "Kill Us" document, a voice can be heard on the other side of a blocked door screaming for help. Zooming with the camcorder reveals the voice is being followed by Eddie, who quickly disappears from the corridor. Waylon continues to the Vocational Block, where Eddie is once again seen when he pushes his face against the glass of one of the doors, smiling. He is notably scarred and acts out much like many Variants, though to an extremely much higher degree; he has misogynistic and transmisogynistic fantasies and mutilates other men to make them look like his ideal woman, including genital and chest mutilation, all in an attempt to create a "bride" for himself. This gives him his label as "The Groom."

During that time in the game, Eddie pursues Waylon. Waylon jumps down an elevator shaft to escape him, and gravely wounds his right leg while doing so, making him less mobile for the remainder of the game. With an injured leg, still attempting to escape Eddie, Waylon attempts to hide in a locker, but Eddie discovers this and drags the locker itself to another room - Eddie's "workshop," where he brutally mutilates others.

Eddie gasses the locker Waylon is inside of to "calm him down" while he cuts into another victim. Shortly after this, Eddie strips Waylon of all his clothes and places him on a table, preparing to cut into him with a buzzsaw, with Waylon's body placed so his genitals are aimed at the buzzsaw. Just before the spinning buzzsaw reaches Waylon's body, a Variant comes in and engages in a fight with Eddie. Waylon uses this distraction as an opportunity to escape through a broken window.

Death

Once Waylon escapes, he is forced to go back in the block and find the key that unlocks the door to the Male Ward. Eddie continues his pursuit of Waylon and captures him once more, shouting out misogynistic slurs while chasing him. He puts a noose around Waylon's neck while berating Waylon for "betraying" him, and attempts to hang him on a pulley system, along with many previously deceased and mutilated hanging victims.

Waylon struggles for his life as he is lifted, with his weight causing some of the ceiling and pulley system to break away, which forces Eddie to use more strength to lift and hang Waylon. Eventually, Waylon's weight becomes too great of a burden for Eddie to lift. This causes a sudden weight shift in the pulley; Waylon falls, while Eddie is caught up into his own ropes and pulled upward to be impaled onto a hanging metal bar. Eddie uses his dying breath to grab Waylon's hand, sadly telling him "We could have been beautiful." Waylon falls down and lands on the ground, causing Eddie to be further impaled on the bar, killing him.

Personality

Gluskin has a misleadingly kind personality; he is, by and large, very charming, though upon being rejected he can become violent and insulting. He is obsessed with the idea of his "perfect bride," to the point where he mutilates people he deems mentally acceptable to make them physically acceptable as well. He appears to be only interested in taking men and removing and adding parts to create a woman by removing the penis, testicles, and excess body hair and adding breasts. His charming personality often slips when he is rejected, and he teeters dangerously between complimenting his "bride's" appearance and personality and insulting them, often using violent slurs.

Physical description

Gluskin is seen as a very tall and muscular man, middle-aged, with a black slicked back undercut hairstyle which is neatly combed down. The Morphogenic Engine littered the right side of his face with red blisters and skin peelings, and has brutally snapped every vein in his eyes, rendering them extremely bloodshot. He dons old-timey gentleman clothing crudely sewn together into a dirty dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up slightly, dark blue bow-tie, matching vest, as well as black fingerless gloves, matching work boots, belt, cargo pants and armbands.

Trivia

His role in the story is similar to Richard Trager as they both capture the protagonist, cut off body parts from The Variants, speak in a polite tone along with calling the protagonists a certain nickname and saying that they are heavier than they look and are killed in an attempt to kill the protagonist.
The song Eddie sings is I Want a Girl and is the same song that plays in the trailer for Outlast: Whistleblower. It can be heard playing on a radio in the background when Waylon climbs down the attic's stairs. While singing the first half of the song, Gluskin replaces the word "boy" with "son".
There is a bug where sometimes a second Eddie's AI will be spawned at the moment the first Eddie AI grabs you and kills you.