The Danish director Christian Tafdrup’s “Speak No Evil” (2022) was a twisted and depraved psychological horror film filled with sharp and stinging social satire, capped with an unforgiving resolution that ranks with “Se7en” (1995), “Requiem for a Dream” (2000) and “The Mist” (2007) as among the bleakest endings of the last three decades.
It took just two years for Blumhouse Productions (“The Purge,” “Get Out,” “The Black Phone,” et al.) to give us an American remake, with writer-director James Watkins delivering a film that mirrors the original for much of the time before smoothing out some of the more brutal edges. (It’s reminiscent of how the 1993 American remake of “The Vanishing” softened the shock factor of the 1988 French-Dutch film of the same name.)
American ex-pats Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) are on holiday in Italy with their anxious, 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler), who can’t go anywhere without clutching her “worry bunny” stuffed animal. They’re befriended by the garrulous but charismatic Paddy (James McAvoy) and his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), along with a son they call Ant (Dan Hough), who is about Agnes’ age and cannot speak due to a congenital disorder. The two families hit it off, with the Daltons becoming a bit intoxicated by the ways in which Paddy and Ciara unapologetically reach out and grab life with gusto. They take them out of their comfort zone. They’re fun.
You know how you meet some people on vacation, and you have this instant connection, and you promise to stay in touch and see other again, even as you realize that’s probably never going to happen because after all, they’re really strangers? Well. The Dalton family actually accepts Paddy and Ciara’s invitation to stay at their country home in west England, despite Louise’s initial misgivings. Ben and Louise are going through a rough stretch, with Ben having lost his job and Louise now resenting Ben for uprooting the family. Maybe this excursion will help ease tensions and give them a chance to hit the reset button.
We often talk about how even the best horror movies usually depend on some pivotal scenes where ostensibly smart people do really dumb things. “Speak No Evil” embraces that trope to darkly comedic effect, from the moment the Daltons arrive at the sprawling, working organic farm and are greeted with almost too much enthusiasm by Paddy and Ciara.
Alix West Lefler (from left), Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy play a wary family staying with Paddy and Ciara.
Despite the spaciousness of the house, Agnes is to sleep on a shabby mattress on the floor of the tiny room she’ll share with Ant. The bedsheets are stained in the guest bedroom for Ben and Louise. Even though Paddy knows Louise is a vegetarian, he makes a big deal over the prized goose he has killed and cooked for dinner, and he insists Louise take the first bite — and she accommodates so as not to offend.
Even more troubling is the way Paddy treats Ant, with behavior that borders on physical and verbal abuse and starts to cross that line. Alarm bells are going off, but Ben and Louise keep hitting the snooze button. Wake up, people! You’re in the middle of a slow-build horror story, and you need to get in your Tesla and take your daughter far away from this place, and don’t look back.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Outliers” presents the theory that a number of plane crashes involving certain cultures have been caused at least in part by “mitigated speech” in the cockpit, i.e., co-pilots being overly deferential and polite, only hinting at problems or hedging their assessments, so as to avoid appearing insubordinate or confrontational. This is how Louise and Ben comport themselves during that maddeningly tense slow build before all hell breaks loose. They defer to Agnes and in particular Paddy again and again, choosing to ignore warning signals, chalking up the rude and domineering actions of their hosts to cultural differences. It is Polite Society gone bonkers.
James McAvoy gives a raging, screen-gobbling performance as a self-appointed alpha male who always seems on the verge of madness. (You’ll never hear the Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” the same way again.) Mackenzie Davis shines as Louise, who often has to take command of the moment because Ben is such an indecisive mope.
“Speak No Evil” eventually goes full-on with the familiar horror movie blood-spattering, but the social satire in that well-executed build-up is the real strength of the film. Ben and Louise are so pliable, we can’t but feel that when they finally speak up, it might be too late.
