James McAvoy’s Twisted Horror Nightmare Officially Conquers Streaming

One of the more divisive films to premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is Paul Andrew Williams‘ Faith, a British supernatural drama with plenty of surprises. The film scored mixed reviews from those in attendance, including Collider’s Tania Hussain, who wrote that the film’s “rather confused conclusion” is “more likely to be remembered for its bizarre imagery than the emotional catharsis it never quite earns.” At the heart of Faith, as devoted mother Gina and mysterious stranger Michael are Erin Doherty and James McAvoy, with the latter a year removed from his feature directorial debut, California Schemin’.

A year before debuting California Schemin’, McAvoy led a hotly anticipated horror remake that proved a big financial success. Speak No Evil — which also starred Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis, and Aisling Franciosi — was a remake of the 2022 Danish-Dutch production of the same name, which was nominated for Best Film at the Seattle International Film Festival. This remake, by writer/director James Watkins, didn’t find quite as much success in terms of awards, but did earn favorable reviews from critics, scoring a “certified fresh” 83% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

At the box office, 2024’s Speak No Evil earned a global haul of $77 million, split between $37 million in domestic revenue and a further $40 million from overseas markets. Against a production budget of just $15 million, this was enough for Speak No Evil to become one of the quiet success stories of spooky season, even defeating the billion-dollar blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine in its opening weekend. Two years later, the film is back among the best. At the time of writing, Speak No Evil is one of the ten most-streamed movies on HBO Max in the U.S.

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

• He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
• Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
• The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
• You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

• But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
• Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
• Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
• You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

• You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
• The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
• Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
• Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

• The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
• You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
• That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
• It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

• You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
• Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
• Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
• Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.

The Year’s Biggest Horror Movie Is Coming to Netflix

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Halloween might come to an end on November 1, but the horror fun on streaming doesn’t stop there. On November 17, the smash-hit 2026 favorite Obsession will be available to stream on Netflix. Becoming the highest-grossing original horror movie of this century during a jaw-dropping theatrical run, Obsession turned a sub-$1 million budget into more than half a billion at the box office.

Speak No Evil is one of the ten most-streamed movies on HBO Max in the U.S. Stay tuned to Collider for more.

Speak No Evil