I love me a good, terrifying, and slightly off-kilter story. When I’m not thinking about movies, TV, anime, or books, I may find myself down a rabbit hole of chilling true stories. Some of them may be urban myths, some of them unsolved mysteries, but they all raise the hair on the back of my neck. Such is the story of the Silent Twins.

So intriguing was this story that I went out of my way to track down an out-of-print book chronicling their incredibly strange lives. So, what’s strange about them? Well, let me regale you with a tale of June and Jennifer Gibbons, two twins who had their own secret language of communication.

Now, admittedly, this isn’t such a huge deal. When kids grow up together — especially twins — there is a tendency to create a language. But things got a bit more odd with them. In addition to drugs, petty crimes, and arson, the two appeared to have some sort of mental disorder, which led to their spending years in a mental hospital. Throughout a lot of it, they refused to speak.

Even odder was that the girls had an agreement that if one of them died, then the other would have to speak and begin living a normal life. It seemed less like an agreement and more like a necessity. Then, one day, Jennifer Gibbons mysteriously died (with no evidence of drugs or poison in her system), with and June seemed elated, with journalist Marjorie Wallace (who later wrote the book I read) claiming June said “I’m free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me.”

From what has been reported, June went on to live a normal life from that moment on.

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A Silent Twins Film?

So, why am I telling you this? Well, that movie is being adapted into a film. Starring in the film will be Black Panther’s Letitia Wright and The Long Song’s Tamara Lawrance. 

“The Silent Twins tells the chilling true story of twin sisters who were entirely silent, communicating only to each other in a private language. They became obsessed with writing fiction, boys, and crime in their teens. As their intense bond turned into something far more dangerous, how far would their obsessions take them?”

The Silent Twins will serve as Agnieszka Smoczynska’s (The Lure, Fugue) English language debut. It is written by Andrea Seigel (Laggies) and based on the book The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace.

From the sound of it, this film will lead into the creepier side of these twins’ relationship, but I can’t help but wonder if it will be too…exploitative? As eerie as the story is to read, it seems apparent in retrospect at these girls simply had mental disorders and were surrounded by people who simply didn’t know how to treat it or reach them. Is it wrong to turn that into a film spectacle?

I’ll be the hypocrite here, because it’s exactly because of the intriguing true narrative that I’ll be watching the film to begin with. 

What do you think of this story? Are you interested? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Kindred Spirit, 42