Never Let Go

Halle in the Woods, Wigs in the Wild & One Very Traumatized Dog: The Real-Life Drama Behind Never Let Go (2024)

A mom, two sons, an evil spirit…and a squirrel carcass? The horror in Never Let Go didn’t end when the cameras stopped rolling. From method-acting mayhem to a box-office flop turned streaming comeback and a full-blown wig CULT, the off-screen saga of Halle Berry’s 2024 thriller is a whole franchise of chaos on its own.

On-Set Drama: Bears, Blood, and a One-Take Meltdown

The squirrel scandal that shook CinemaCon

At CinemaCon 2024, Halle Berry casually dropped that she learned how to skin a squirrel to play her feral, survivalist mom in Never Let Go. The room reportedly gasped as she described working in the woods with “no electricity, no lights,” calling it “a little bit of Method acting” and admitting the whole thing was “a challenge” . PETA later had to clarify she didn’t skin a real squirrel on camera, after headlines implied she might have gone full frontier woman for real .

• Translation: It was giving “Daniel Day-Lewis, but make it glam.”

Tethered in the woods…with actual bears

Berry revealed they shot in real woods that were, no big deal, bear country. She said nighttime on set “became the scariest place because there were sounds” everywhere, adding a very non-union layer of terror to those rope-tether sequences .

The dog scene from hell

The most infamous moment on set was the emotionally brutal dog scene. Berry says flat-out: “The dog scene was hard for me. It was hard for all of us. We didn’t want to do it” .

• Young co-star Percy Daggs IV reportedly hit an “acting block” and couldn’t cry, knowing he had to go to a dark place with the family pet ^[3].
• Berry went off-script, literally “shook them up” to jolt him out of his head—Daggs then burst into real tears and connected with the dog so deeply that the one usable take is what ended up in the film ^[3].
• At Fantastic Fest, audience members specifically thanked them for not killing the dog, confirming horror’s #1 rule still stands: hurt anyone you want, but do not touch the dog ^[3].

The director’s secret emotional-support dog

While he was terrorizing audiences, director Alexandre Aja was basically a walking dog carrier. Berry spilled that he kept his tiny dog Peanut zipped in his coat with her little face poking out all through the shoot ^[3]. Aja even joked that if they’d killed the dog in the movie, he’d have been deported—animal lovers were watching that subplot very closely ^[3].

Scandals & Controversies: From “Squirrel-Gate” to a Faith-Flopping Horror

PETA vs. the headlines

After EW ran Berry’s account of learning to skin a squirrel, the internet did what it does best: panicked. PETA jumped in to clarify Berry hadn’t actually skinned a real squirrel for the film, trying to tamp down outrage before it turned into a full boycott ^[1][2]. Moral of the story: never underestimate how fast “I researched skinning a squirrel” becomes “Halle Berry murdered a woodland creature.”

The horror fans who absolutely hated it

On Reddit’s horror boards, some viewers torched the movie’s handling of mental illness and child endangerment. One viral rant called it “a schizo woman abusing children,” saying instead of scary, it just felt “sad” and “sick” . Others slammed it as a “disappointing” psychological horror with a weak script .

• Meanwhile, critics divided over its faith and trauma themes, with one review saying it “intrigues yet flounders its faith-based themes” . The discourse got messy, fast.

The ending that sparked a studio fight

Director Alexandre Aja admitted he had a “real fight” with the studio to keep the film’s ambiguous, fiery ending . He wanted audiences arguing about whether the Evil is real or all in Momma’s head; the studio, apparently, wanted things a bit more…explainable. He won, hence the Reddit threads still spiraling about what actually happened ^[6][5].

Box Office Woes & Cult Redemption

From flop to fan favorite (eventually)

Opening weekend was brutal. Box office watchers roasted Lionsgate for “another flop incoming,” noting that Never Let Go stumbled to around a sub-$5M debut and eventually crawled to only $10.2M in the U.S. . One outlet bluntly called it a “comeback” attempt for Berry that “falls flat” .

• But plot twist: by mid-2025, Never Let Go quietly became a streaming hit, climbing the Starz charts and attracting a new wave of fans who loved the slow-burn psychological horror ^[13]. Horror Twitter and Reddit did the classic 180: “Wait…maybe this is actually good?”

Sequel & prequel scripts already in the vault

Berry later teased that there are already ideas (and even scripts) for a prequel and multiple sequels in the Never Let Go universe—if the money’s there . For a movie that limped theatrically, that’s some serious confidence.

Wigs, Memes & Halle’s Love Life: The Fun Stuff

The Wig Screenings that became a full-blown movement

Remember the distressed curly wig from Berry’s 2013 thriller The Call—the one fans have memed into oblivion? Berry decided to weaponize the joke for Never Let Go. She hosted “Never Let Go (of my wig)” screenings, inviting fans to show up in deliberately wrecked wigs .

• She arrived in the original, widely-roasted Call wig, pulled spare wigs out of a bag for underdressed fans, and yelled, “Where’s your wig, brother? Don’t be ashamed, put it on!” ^[4].
• Berry lovingly called the much-mocked hairpiece an “abomination” and admitted she literally stole the style from a real 911 operator she’d met during research ^[4].
• Fans spammed social media with wig selfies; Berry encouraged people to tweet her their looks, saying, “I’m gonna be waiting up to know what my special fans think” ^[4].

Date night horror: Halle & Van Hunt at the premiere

Page Six clocked Berry turning the Los Angeles premiere into a full romance moment, stepping out with musician boyfriend Van Hunt for a glitzy date night in a metallic Tamara Ralph dress ^[9].

• The relationship’s got its own mini drama: Berry later admitted she was “scared” when their romance passed the three-year mark because her relationships “never usually go further than that” . In 2026, reports say Van Hunt has proposed, but Berry hasn’t officially said “yes” yet—so the “will-she-won’t-she” engagement saga continues ^[10].

Wild Trivia & Fan Theories

Is the Evil real, or is Momma just unwell?

Fans have gone full detective mode over whether the Evil is literal or a manifestation of Momma’s mental illness. Some horror Redditors read the whole movie as a tragedy about an unstable mother abusing her kids under the guise of “protection” ^[5], while Aja insists the film thrives on that very ambiguity and fought to keep it that way ^[6].

Halle the adrenaline junkie

Berry has called herself a “bonafide adrenaline junkie” and basically framed Never Let Go as an excuse to go feral in the woods for work ^[1]. Between squirrel-skin training, tethering herself to trees, and acting opposite bears and traumatized kids, she might have a point.