Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Never Let Go (2024)
WhileNever Let Gorelies heavily on its big twist, I guessed where the horror movie’s story was heading a month before I even saw it. Horror movie trailers are a mixed blessing. Some, like NEON’s viral marketing campaign forLonglegs, can be as unsettling and thrilling as a great horror movie. Others, like the trailers forAlien: Romulus,Speak No Evil, and many more of 2024’s biggest genre movies, give away too much plot and leave viewers with no reason to seek out the movie itself. Then there aremovies like director Alexandre Aja’sNever Let Go.
Does Never Let Go Have A Post-Credits Scene?
Alexandre Aja’s recently-released supernatural thriller features anxiety-inducing questions throughout, but does anything happen after the credits?
Whilethe ending ofNever Let Gois surprising, the movie’s basic premise is fairly familiar. In a setup that has a lot in common with earlier hits likeA Quiet Place,Azrael,Arcadian, andBird Box, Halle Berry stars as an unnamed mother protecting her two sons from a shapeshifting evil entity that lurks in the woods outside their isolated woodland home. An unspecified off-screen event appears to have devastated the world’s population, leaving only occasional monsters that threaten the family if they stray too far from the house.Never Let Go’s trailer offered only this premise, but that was enough.
Never Let Go’s Trailer And Director Gave Away Its Big Twist
The Survival Horror Turns Out Not To Be Post-Apocalyptic
When I saw who was directing the movie and watched its trailer,I correctly guessedNever Let Go’s twist without even seeing the movie itself. I can prove it, too, since I wrote an article for this very site where I predicted that Halle Berry’s character would be revealed to be delusional, the off-screen apocalypse would be revealed to be imaginary, and the twist would be that her sons were living in the normal world all along. To some extent,Never Let Go’s twist copied Aja’s earlier slasher,Haute Tension, with both movies starring unstable, unreliable heroines.
Berry’s stern, severe mother insists that “The Evil" inhabits the forest surrounding the family home, but her sons can’t see or hear this “Evil” when it appears.
Haute Tensionwas a straightforward slasher wherein the apparent Final Girl turned out to be the killer unbeknownst to herself, whileNever Let Go’s twist is a little more complicated. Berry’s stern, severe mother insists that “The Evil" inhabits the forest surrounding the family home, but her sons can’t see or hear this “Evil” when it appears. The Evil is only visible to their mother and, since it takes the form of her abusive mother and her ex-husband, it pretty quickly becomes clear that it might be a projection. From there, it is not hard to guess the world never really ended.
Never Let Go’s Big Second Twist Saves Its Story
The Movie’s Major Death Is Harder To Predict
Surprisingly,Never Let Gostill managed to shock meeven though I had seen the movie’s twist coming weeks before it even arrived in theaters. While I knew from the opening scene that the world hadn’t ended, and it was just the central family who were living a hardscrabble existence in a remote cabin, I didn’t see the movie’s big second twist coming at all. Well beforeNever Let Goriffs on M. Night Shyamalan’sThe Villagein its ending, the movie’s second act ends with the brutal, utterly unexpected death of Berry’s character.
Berry’s unnamed mother taking her own life genuinely shocked me when I thought I had all the movie’s tricks figured out, and this twist made the movie’s ending far stronger than I anticipated. While the perspective of Berry’s character dominated the first half of the movie, the finale instead shifted its focus between her two sons. As one overcame the connection to this supernatural evil that he inherited from his mother, the other was overwhelmed by the hereditary curse. This unsettling Cain and Abel retelling left me legitimately surprised, as I didn’t think Berry’s character could die before the ending.
Never Let Go’s Predictable Twist May Have Hurt Its Box Office
The $20 Million Movie Has Earned Only $8 Million
AlthoughNever Let Go’s clever Polaroid sceneproves that there was some sort of supernatural business afoot in the woods, the movie still eventually has to admit that its apparent apocalypse was a fabrication. This left some critics unimpressed, with the horror earning divided reviews upon release. Meanwhile,Never Let Go’s box office performance was less than ideal, which didn’t shock me given its predictable twist.Never Let Go’s under-performance has got to come down, at least partially, to the fact that a viewer can correctly guess its ending from the trailer.
Never Let Goearned only $4.5 million in its opening weekend (perDeadline).
Never Let Gois unsettling and effective, but the movie’s main twist is unfortunately just too obvious.Never Let Go’s clever, creepy psychological horror story may have fared better if its promotional materials hadn’t kept its big revelation a secret but, as is, it is not surprising that Aja’s movie underperformed.Never Let Gomade $8.4 million on a budget of $20 million, proving that a predictable twist can be a major problem for horror movies upon release, even when they are otherwise strong genre outings.
