Speak No Evil star explains why it “doesn’t matter” controversial trailer spoiled the plot twist

This year’s Speak No Evil is a remake of the Danish horror with a notorious twist ending, and although the trailer for the new movie might have spoiled this, star Mackenzie Davis doesn’t think it matters.

From the moment the trailer for the Speak No Evil’s 2024 remake dropped, it became a major talking point – and not necessarily for good reasons. In fact, the trailer was accused of spoiling the Danish movie’s significant plot twist, effectively continuing Hollywood’s worst trend. (Be warned: spoilers ahead!)

In the trailer for the 2024 horror movie, a sequence is shown in which the young boy in the film opens his mouth and makes a snipping motion with his fingers.

This essentially blows the big twist in the original film’s finale; the boy has been kidnapped, his tongue cut out to prevent him from blowing the cover of a lying couple (his fake parents) now preying on their next victims.

Naturally, this had fans of the original up in arms. But Mackenzie Davis, who plays Louise in the new movie, doesn’t think they should be concerned with spoilers. And that goes for all horror movies, too.

“I mean, I get it,” she told Dexerto. “But I also think that all horror movies, they’re not mysteries. They’re a pretty consistent formula. The things that happen within that formula change, but you know the people are going to be okay in the end. You know who the villains are going to be. I don’t know if surprise is so important in this genre.

“Trailers always do that,” she added. “There’s no way to make a movie and then be surprised who the villain is, or something else, because things were just already leaked beforehand. I don’t think it really matters in this case, because I don’t want it to.”

Twists are nothing new in modern horror. Often, the most memorable movies of its kind have a diabolical shock to shake things up. Speak No Evil, originally released in 2022, is a prime example of this.

With an ending that shatters audiences (particularly parents), it’s not an easy one to forget.

Speak No Evil arrives in theaters on September 12, 2024. 

For more, check out our guide to the best horror movies on Amazon Prime Video and best horror movies on Disney Plus. You can also keep track of all the best movies of 2024 so far.