Speak No Evil review

SPEAK NO EVIL: 

JAMES MCAVOY GOES BONKERS IN CHILLING HORROR REMAKE! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

James McAvoy in Speak No Evil

 

            A couple (and their daughter) is invited to another couple’s country home only to discover it’s not as it seems in Speak No Evil, the latest horror film from Blumhouse. The film is directed by James Watkins (The Woman in Black) and is a remake of a 2022 Danish horror movie of the same name. 

            I should make this clear, I’ve never seen the original movie so I don’t know how faithful this American version is though I am curious to check it out someday. I’ll be judging this film on its own and truth be told, I wasn’t really that impressed by the trailers. 

            Not that it looked bad or anything, but it looked like every other Blumhouse horror movie to me and their 2024 releases weren’t exactly that spectacular (Night Swim, Imaginary, AfrAId). But I kept an open mind about it when the time came to discuss it and I have to say, as someone who has never seen the original, this is a solid and downright chilling horror movie that exceeded my expectations in just about every way. 

            The film follows Louise (Mackenzie Davis-The Martian, Blade Runner 2049, Tully) and Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy-Art School Confidential, Argo, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), a couple from America who moved to London with their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) meeting and befriending free-spirited British couple, Paddy (James McAvoy-The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, X-Men franchise, Split) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi-Game of Thrones, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Stopmotion) and their son who doesn’t speak named Ant (Dan Hough). Paddy and Ciara invite Louise, Ben, and Agnes to stay at their country home in the middle of nowhere for a weekend holiday but the vacation soon warps into a disturbing psychological nightmare. 

            Overall, Speak No Evil is a well-crafted, suspenseful, and decidedly slow descent into terror and chaos that doesn’t fall victim to typical Blumhouse clichés. That’s not to say Blumhouse movies are bad (I enjoyed a fair amount of them), but a lot of their works often rely heavily on jump scares which are more annoying and uninspired than scary. 

            This movie takes its time to build up its scares (as it’s a more psychological film rather than a straight-up “Boo!” fest) and for a good chunk of the runtime there is hardly anything frightening, but you just know something about this place and these people feel off. I know a slow burn is not everyone’s cup of tea (Especially if it’s a horror movie), but I thought it worked really well here and made the scares all the more effective than if it started right up with the scares. 

            Atmosphere aside, James McAvoy is what carries this film because he is phenomenal here and does a great flipflopping between being charming to deranged. It often reminded me of his performance as Kevin in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split and Glass in terms of how over-the-top and crazy he gets throughout the film which I gladly welcome as he makes it extremely entertaining whenever he’s onscreen (Which fortunately is a lot). 

            Probably the most polarizing aspect of the movie is the couple themselves because they are constantly making the wrong decisions in these types of situations and that the audience is much smarter than them. Why is this couple vacationing at these peoples’ remote farmhouse that they just met and why are they giving them their home address among other pieces of information? Dumb decisions galore! 

This will either be a turnoff point for you or you’ll accept it as part of the film’s intention as a cautionary tale about how we can find ourselves in dire situations because of our kindness and I’m positive this also plays a huge factor in the original Danish movie. It honestly also made me think back to Disney’s Frozen and how that movie made a huge deal about marrying someone you just met that day which also led to one of the protagonists getting stuck in a dire situation because of it, it just goes to show you don’t marry someone you just met and you certainly don’t vacation at a remote place with people you just met. 

The moment when the family discovers what’s really going on and they try to leave without being impolite are easily the most tense and spine-tingling bits of the film. They just leave you on the edge of your seat questioning how these scenes are going to play out and what will happen when the other couple catches on to what they’re trying to do, you’re constantly on edge during this film and I love it because of that. 

Without going into spoilers, I found the first two acts to be the strongest parts of the film and while I was still invested in the last act, there wasn’t really much surprise anymore. It just turns into another escape from the creepy house and people climax that’s done well, but I’ve seen it before in many other movies.

I had a blast with Speak No Evil and will gladly hail it as Blumhouse’s best horror movie of 2024 (Which I know isn’t saying much, but this feels like a return to form for them after a string of misfires this year). It’s a creepy and thought-provoking psychological horror film about what can happen when we’re too kind and how our kindness can put us in dire situations if we’re not careful which is honestly more terrifying than anything supernatural.