Speak No Evil remake just spoiled the original’s horrific twist

James McAvoy’s Speak No Evil, a remake of one of the decade’s most harrowing films, just revealed its first trailer — and it’s already spoiled the original horror movie’s big twist. Spoilers ahead!

Some horror films are designed to be fun — but others, like 2022’s Speak No Evil, are so unimaginably horrifying that they leave you emotionally scarred.

Its upcoming remake, starring McAvoy and Mackenzie Davis, appears to be a near-shot-for-shot do-over of the original Danish chiller. The premise is simple: two families meet on holiday, and despite some reservations over one side’s freewheeling pushiness, they manage to hit it off. When they’re back home, they decide to get together for a weekend at one of their homes — and things go very, very wrong.

We’re about to get into exactly what goes down in the film, and what will likely happen in the remake (as seemingly given away by the trailer), so you have been warned.

In the original Speak No Evil, Patrick and Karin (McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi’s roles in the remake) have a son who was born with a rare condition: congenital aglossia, meaning he was born without a tongue.

That isn’t quite true. The couple are actually serial killers who have a specific pattern: they abduct children after murdering their parents, but they cut off their tongues so they can’t tell anyone what happened.

The new trailer ends with a shot of the young boy gesturing the motion of cutting with scissors with his mouth open — which completely spoils that reveal for those who hadn’t seen the original. It’s a baffling decision, and one that’s been criticized by horror fans.

“So nice to show the final twist of the film in the trailer,” one user commented. “What? The original doesn’t need a remake! And they gave away the twist in the trailer? What are they thinking,” another wrote. “The original film is brilliant. Real shame producers ruined the twist in this trailer. I doubt the ending won’t be as brutal,” a third wrote.

We won’t reveal exactly how the original ends, either — but it is brutal, and the remake’s trailer suggests its climax may be a bit different.

Speak No Evil will hit cinemas on September 13. You can find out what other horror movies you should be watching on Netflix, and our list of the top 30 horror films of all time.