Speak No Evil (2024)

September 14, 2024 4:06 PM

[TRAILER] When an American family is invited to spend the weekend at the idyllic country estate of a charming British family they befriended on vacation, what begins as a dream holiday soon warps into a snarled psychological nightmare. A remake of the 2022 Danish film of the same name, from the director of Eden Lake and starring James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Alix West Lefler, and Aisling Franciosi.

Written and directed by James Watkins. Based on Speak No Evil by Christian Tafdrup, Mads Tafdrup. Produced by Jason Blum, Paul Ritchie for Blumhouse. Cinematography by Tim Maurice-Jones. Edited by Jon Harris. Music by Danny Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans.

85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Now playing in US theaters. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (14 comments total)

This is going to garner a very divided response because it's a good movie that is a remake of a very good movie but in a somewhat different genre and for a mostly different audience. I think many people who loved the original will hate this and say it pulls its punches. I think many people who hated the original and thought it was slow, talky, and miserably bleak will find this a rip-roaring thrill ride.

The original was an icy cold, bleak-as-fuck satire/horror about the tendency of middle-to-upper class people to absorb awfulness without vocalizing a complaint because they'd rather die than be rude. This one takes the plot bones of that and uses it to make a "You didn't realize you were dealing with psychos!" thriller, in the vein of films like Fatal Attraction or Single White Female.

For my money, on the one hand, I find this remake a definite notch below the superlative original which upset me so much it took me two triers to watch it all the way through. On the other, the genre shift and associated changes give it more reason to exist as a remake of a mostly English language film made only two years before than I ever would have expected. It plays out differently and isn't just a shot-for-shot retread with new actors.

And hey, horror fans: even if you hate this, it will be terrific not having to see the trailer in front of positively every movie you see anymore.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:11 PM on September 14 [3 favorites]

it took me two triers to watch it all the way through

Is that a unit of time based on how upset one gets by a Lars Von Trier movie?

"Miike's Audition really messed me up. It was like, 3 Triers before I could watch another Japanese horror film."
posted by Saxon Kane at 5:22 PM on September 14 [21 favorites]

it will be terrific not having to see the trailer in front of positively every movie you see anymore

Fuck yeah, it will. This is the worst kind of movie for trailer carpetbombing, and, as a selective horror-watcher, I wish they wouldn't do it.
posted by praemunire at 5:37 PM on September 14

Ugh, yes, 1000%. I've seen the trailers approximately 50 billion times during the summer, not to mention ads inserted into podcasts and elsewhere. It's made me not want to see the actual movie so much.
posted by Pryde at 6:10 PM on September 14

The new prime offender for trailer carpetbombing is Smile 2.

If you are in a theater and the newer, second trailer for Smile 2 comes on, get up and take a bathroom break. It seems to dish out the plot all the way through the second act break.

It's offensive.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:33 PM on September 14 [2 favorites]

I wish studios would take into account that horror movies, by definition, make their viewers uncomfortable. This means that while you may not be put off by seeing, say, an action trailer before the rom-com you rolled up to to take your mind off of things, you are likely to find even a green-band horror trailer jarring. I think most adults who watch horror are somewhat like me--they like to pick and choose, they want to be in the right mood for it. Having a mini-unpleasantness session imposed upon you before you can watch The Fall Guy is memorable in the wrong way.

(Plus, yes, having everything given away in exquisite detail would be annoying anyway!)
posted by praemunire at 8:08 PM on September 14 [1 favorite]

Does this have a happy/heroic ending, then?
posted by fleacircus at 10:12 PM on September 15

I almost refuse to see this movie due to the trailer bombing. I'm pretty sure I've seen the trailer before every movie I've seen since maybe February or March? It's 5 months of the same stupid trailer!
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:38 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]

Is it mean? I love horror in general but the Funny Games subgenre of humans just being ferociously cruel to other humans is something I have a hard time with. Gory fine, terrifying fine, but just plain mean isn’t a flavour I choose.
posted by Shepherd at 3:50 PM on September 16 [1 favorite]

(my question has been answered in memail)
posted by fleacircus at 1:27 PM on September 18

Just saw it. McAvoy did the “creepy scary guy making people feel uncomfortable but they’re too scared to do anything about it until it’s too late” better than anyone I’ve ever seen. What a performance.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:46 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]

Went along to this tonight and it was a blast. Haven’t seen the Danish one so can’t compare, but as a movie doing its own thing this worked really well. McAvoy was pitch perfect.
posted by rory at 12:47 PM on October 4

Just the way McAvoy moves in this movie is wild—-so unsettling. He’s like jerky and huge but also not a big person at all? Of course he’s jacked in this. But even the way he sits down in the chairs is wild—-just plops on them. Such great acting
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:18 AM on October 5 [1 favorite]

Mark Kermode's review (he liked it).

I loved the way the visiting couple did push back at points, and it did look—more than once—as if that might make a difference, but once the tipping point was reached no ordinary response of any kind was going to save them. Yet in the cranked-up final act, the character dynamics of the visiting couple and their individual characters contributed to the tension and drama significantly—it made it all so much more believable than it might have been.

Thanks to that shot in the trailer, all I expected from this going in was a Jack Nicholson/Shining-type performance from McAvoy, but it was much more satisfying than that. There's a lot going on here. I wouldn't exactly call the ending heroic, either—or happy, or even "not bleak". As I said above, I haven't seen the Danish version, but can imagine a way this would end more bleakly, but still...

I can understand how fans of the original might want to give it a miss; I saw the Dutch original of The Vanishing years ago and haven't dared touch the US remake, having heard how it botched the ending. But this doesn't have a botched ending. A changed one, sure, but it sticks the landing.
posted by rory at 7:22 AM on October 5