To Spoil, or Not to Spoil?

When is it acceptable to give away crucial details about a film or show?

(warning: this post contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice)

One of the thornier topics in the film discourse community – criticism, online discussions, etc. – is the subject of spoilers, or giving away too much about the film (or TV show, with the latter having the added hurdle of people watching a series at their own pace). It’s become a veritable panic in some quarters of the Internet, sometimes to a ridiculous degree: I once got yelled at by readers for some information I divulged in my review of the ninth Fast & Furious movie – all stuff that was in the trailers or had been publicly disclosed before release.

Then there’s a special case like M. Night Shyamalan, who has repeatedly stated he prefers it to leave his older movies unspoiled for future generations, and generally gets support from critics and fans when it comes to the newer ones: when the time came to review Trap last month, the most a lot of us did in terms of summarizing the plot was to limit ourselves to what had been shown in the trailers and promos, whilst clarifying that accounted for roughly the first 20 minutes of the film.