Speak No Evil is the 2024 remake of the 2022 Danish horror of the same name. It follows the Daltons, an American family, who meet Paddy, Ciara, and Ant, a British family while on vacation. They become friends and a while later the Daltons travel out and stay at their home. While there, they discover that their hosts have an evil past with sinister intentions for them and they must fight to survive. Starring James McAvoy, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis, and Aisling Franciosi, the Speak No Evil remake differentiates itself from its predecessor and carve out its own story.
What stood out the most for me was easily James McAvoy’s performance, specifically how he interacts with each character. The Daltons come to him and his “family” at a vulnerable time. Ben (McNairy) and Louise (Davis) have been having marital problems stemming from inappropriate texts being sent and jobs being lost. Paddy comes off strong but can strong-arm Ben in their friendship as he is the “alpha male” that Ben wants to be. McAvoy excels at being charming enough to keep this family around while also terrifying. He is physically in incredible shape which comes in handy for the finale, and his switch flips to being a psychopath incredibly fast once the Daltons start to uncover their secret.
The biggest strength of the movie I’d say was how the two families bonded and then clashed. We see throughout the movie how much they enjoyed each other’s presence, but then small differences begin to pop up. The best example is how Louise is a vegetarian which at first Paddy respects, but then later makes her eat meat, under the guise that he forgot and that it was their prize bird that they just cooked up. They have many disagreements on several issues where their ideological differences clash and we can see the gap widen between these two families and the Daltons begin to realize that they don’t know these people.
Being a remake of a 2022 movie, it is really hard to justify your existence when people could just watch the original. One is Danish and one is American so I do understand that this will have a bigger audience in America, but just changing the language isn’t enough to prove you’re worth, unless you’re Funny Games.
UPDATE: I have now seen the 2022 Speak No Evil and it is in English, so the only thing that distinguishes the two is the divergence of the endings really. I apologize for the false statement, I will be better at fact-checking myself before making such statements. Thank you##
I haven’t seen it yet, but I do know it is incredibly darker than this remake. Like if you haven’t seen it, you will probably come out of it more depressed or pissed off. I do think this change does neuter the story in an attempt to make it more appealing. I consider it similar to how Last Shift was recently remade into Malum where they made one change to the story and went down a whole new path.
Because of this, I thought the story fell down a path that became predictable. However, I think this is on me because I knew how the original ended and once it was clear this version was going to pivot, I knew how it would end. I have no problem with this because I think a lot of people will enjoy this as their first viewing of this story. Sometimes I have to remind myself people aren’t naturally sickos like me and can enjoy a horror movie with a happy ending.
FINAL THOUGHTS
At the end of the day, Speak No Evil is a good movie. I know people will be happy to not have to see the trailer anymore, but beyond that joke, it is a legitimately tense movie with good performances by its leads, particularly James McAvoy. I think this is an easy movie to recommend and it’ll be one a lot of people will enjoy this spooky season.
