Speak No Evil (2024) Review

The Danish horror-thriller Speak No Evil has earned a Hollywood remake with Blumhouse producing it, with James McAvoy as the lead.

Ben and Louise Dalton (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis) are on a family vacation in Italy where they meet another family, Paddy and Ciara (McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi), and their son Ant (Dan Hough). Despite Paddy being inappropriate, the Daltons befriend the West Country couple, and Paddy and Ciara offer their new American friends a chance to visit them in Devon. When the Daltons arrive at Paddy and Ciara’s farm, they quickly become uncomfortable by their host’s strange behaviour.

Speak No Evil did not seem to be a likely candidate for a remake. The original film was mostly in English with a bleak, satirical edge to it. The reputation of Hollywood remakes of foreign horror films has generally been negative. For every The Ring or Let Me In, there’s a Vanishing (1993) or Wicker Man (2006) to counteract it. Plus, Blumhouse has been suffering from a critical slump with all their 2024 films doing poorly with critics and the last film I enjoyed from the studio was M3GAN. Fortunately, the remake of Speak No Evil defied the odds and was a good horror film in its own right.

This version of Speak No Evil did seem like it was going to be a straight-forward remake. The first half of the American remake mirrored the Danish original. There was the meeting and exploring of a picturesque Italian town, having an awkward private dinner at a pub, and the crude treatment of a boy during a dance routine. Yet the remake stands out because of some subtle changes and doing its own thing with the story as the film progresses. It follows a good rule for remakes, take the basic idea and do their own thing with it.

Some of the changes were made to make the American version more mainstream. This might upset some people because cinematic purists would think this is bastardising the original. Yet this version of Speak No Evil shows being mainstream isn’t necessarily bad. The original Speak No Evil was a bleak film that would depress most people, the remake was still a dark film, but it was also made to be a crowd-pleaser. The original film was subtle with its characterisation and sometimes to its detriment. The remake showed there was more conflict between Ben and Louise and their marriage was on the rocks before they arrived at the strange couple’s home.  The remake rammed home the fact Paddy and Ciara were odd and had no filter, even when they were in Italy.

One of the changes the remake made seemed minor but ended up having a major significance: aging up the children. Agnes (Alix West Lefler) and Ant were 11 and Agnes suffered from anxiety. The remake played up the creepy child trope with Ant trying to communicate with Agnes. Making the children older gave them more agency since they had their own subplot as their parents battled each other. Another significant change involved the age difference between Paddy and Ciara which was done to expand the story.

The remake has been classified as an American film since it was produced by an American company. Despite the American backing, the remake felt like a British film. It was mostly set in Britain and many of the cast members were British. The writer/director, James Watkins, was an Englishman who’s known for making the horror films Eden Lake and The Woman in Black. Speak No Evil did translate well to a British setting. The film fits into a tradition of stories of a conflict when outsiders visited remote parts of the UK, like The Wicker Man, Hot Fuzz, and Men. Even Watkins’ debut film was set in the English countryside.

This version of Speak No Evil drew influence from Straw Dogs. Both films were about Americans going to the English countryside where they meet hostile locals. Speak No Evil’s climax draws from Straw Dogs more than it did from the Danish original. Speak No Evil and Straw Dogs were both about a clash of masculinity. Paddy was a traditional manly man who was toughing up the men around him, whilst Ben was a meeker man who was easily pushed around and needed to assert himself. McAvoy has played intense villainous characters before so he slotted into the role of unhinged hardman without any issue. McNairy was the bigger surprise since he has generally played dark roles but has moved on to the awkward dad phase of his career. McNairy sounded like Michael Fassbender with an American accent and it would have been funny if he had been cast due to the X-Men connection and Fassbender worked with Watkins on Eden Lake.

The 2024 version of Speak No Evil serves as a good example of how a horror remake should be made. Newcomers can appreciate the film as a tension-filled horror-thriller and fans of the original can accept the remake on its own terms.