Dr. Ian Black is a major character in the Silver Scream music videos.
Biography[]
Ian was a therapist who was hoping to have one of his patients wind up insane so that he could become famous by writing a book based on them. He had also worked at the institution where Floyd Schecter was being held, and had set Floyd free after incorrectly deeming him mentally stable. One day, Spencer Charnas, lead singer of the metalcore band Ice Nine Kills, goes to attend a meeting with Ian. Spencer tells Ian that he has been having recent nightmares and, when asked, recaps his most recent one, which involves a girl (whom Spencer says resembles Ian's receptionist, Karen) being hunted by what Spencer describes as a "dream demon", whom is able to attack her in her dreams and whom has been the cause of various apparent teen "suicides" throughout the girl's local suburbs, which include that of the girl's best friend. After the girl realizes that she can pull the dream demon into the real world, she springs a plan to kill the entity in her sleep with a baseball bat, but Spencer says that this is the part of his dream where he woke up. Dr. Black gets Spencer to agree to months of expensive therapy and tells him to get some diazepam from his colleague, a psychiatrist named Dr. Nancy Stonebridge. Based on his violent dream, Ian thinks Spencer may be a budding psychopathic murderer and considers writing a book about it if that happens to be the case.
Spencer, whom had just gone to Texas as part of a tour with the rest of the band, then attends another meeting with Ian, where he inform him that the nightmares have been continuing, even with the diazepam. Spencer says that this time, the nightmares have been different, and that they involve him, his bandmates and two girls who resemble Karen and Dr. Stonebridge shutting down a camp for the off-season, only for all of them to be slaughtered one-by-one by a man in a hockey mask. After describing the nightmare, Ian suggests to Spencer that he should try and find the root cause of the nightmares. After the session ends, Spencer leaves to attend a recording session in Los Angeles, and Ian goes to talk to Nancy about his suspicions regarding Spencer being a murderer. Unbeknownst to them, however, Spencer secretly spies on them during their conversation.
With his suspicions becoming stronger, Ian follows Spencer into a bar in Massachusetts. After he gets distracted, Spencer slips drugs in Ian's drink, and upon drinking it, Ian becomes light-headed and stumbles outside the bar. There, he witnesses two muggers harassing a young woman, before a man in make-up resembling Spencer appears and saves her, brutally killing the muggers in the process before Ian passes out. Ian is found by the bartender when he reawakens, but when he tries to describe what he saw, the bartender accuses him of being drunk and angrily forces him to leave. The next morning, Dr. Black watches the news and sees a report involving two men being found dead, with their bodies 'hanging from streetlights", further fueling his suspicions. Prior to his next session with Spencer, Ian does some research and learns that Spencer appeared on the music scene with "seemingly no past" and that the dates and locations of Ice Nine Kills's recent tour line up with those of murders similar to the ones described in Spencer's dreams, which makes Ian's suspicions even stronger.
During the session, Ian brings up how Spencer has been seemingly unwilling to discuss his childhood in detail, and suggests that it may be the cause of the nightmares. Funnily enough, Spencer then tells Ian that his most recent nightmare features him as a child, being looked after by a babysitter resembling Dr. Stonebridge, who brings over her friends and some guys (who just so happen to be Spencer's bandmates) so they can party and do drugs. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, a mental asylum patient (whom Spencer refers to as "the Shadow Man") brutally kills a security guard and breaks free, donning a white mask following his escape. The Shadow Man then breaks into the house and begins to murder each of the teenagers one-by-one with a knife, and also kills a police officer whom gets brough onto the scene. The Shadow Man is then attacked and successfully subdued by Spencer's babysitter, but the nightmare apparently ends with a traumatised young Spencer taking a knife and stabbing the babysitter to death. Following the session, Ian does some more research and learns that events described in the dream actually happened in real life back in 1994, with an unidentified 9-year-old boy its sole survivor.
Following a concert during an INK tour, Spencer shows up unusually late to the bus waiting to take them to their next location. INK guitarist Justin "JD" DeBlieck notices that Spencer has a wound on his hand, but Spencer insists that he shouldn't worry about it. Some time later, whilst researching Spencer online, Ian sees that JD and fellow INK member Justin Morrow have gone missing, and gets excited over the prospect of writing a successful book about Spencer's apparent descent into madness. All of a sudden, however, Ian is abducted by an unseen kidnapper. Ian wakes up strapped inside a mine cart ride, with Spencer and Dr. Strongebridge chained to the wall beside him. When asked about the murders, Spencer swears his innocence, before he disappears behind a revolving wall. The ride then starts up, and Ian is left to watch as a man dressed like Pennywise psychologically torments him. During the chaos, Dr. Stonebridge is killed, and after the ride ends, Spencer reveals himself as having been the real killer this whole time, spurred by desires for revenge against Ian since his negligence "ruined [his] fucking life".
Death[]
Ian's death
Is it revealed that when Ian released Floyd Schecter from the institution, Floyd broke into Spencer's house and murdered his sister (the babysitter) and her friends, then, as Spencer hid under the stairs, killed his parents after they returned home, before Spencer was able to catch Floyd off-guard and stab him to death. Spencer then reveals that he injected Ian with a poison, and leaves him to die as he cleans up the crime scene. Ian is ultimately framed for the murders, and his death is labelled as a suicide.