John Mostow
(played by Levani Outchaneichvili) was an Uzbekistani who had come to the United States during perestroika. He was a divorced, unemployed housepainter living in Virginia who had spent the better part of his twenties in an insane asylum and believed he was possessed by a demon leading him to kill young men, leaving them seriously disfigured as he reproduced gargoyle expressions on their faces. At least seven of these men, aged 17 to 25, were thus killed over a three-year period. Mostow was a gifted artist, but lived in a dark studio and kept drawing and sculpting gargoyles over and over again in order to ward off the demon that killed through him. When he was arrested for murder, he continued drawing gargoyles on his cell floor and walls.