The American remake of Speak No Evil is one of the quicker turnarounds for a remake out there. The Danish original only screened at Sundance back in January 2022. After receiving critical acclaim, it was barely over a year later that Blumhouse Productions decided to produce a remake and just over a year after that it arrives here in American theaters. A cynical mind might look at this with some derision.
Still, James Watkins was attached to write and direct, and he has had a decent career making horror and thriller films. And it can now be safely said that the remake is worthy of the original. It perhaps overly repeats the beats of the original and has a slightly more overblown ending, but James McAvoy‘s magnetic performance keeps one anchored to their seat.
The inherent premise of the Speak No Evil is a peak psychological horror concept. After making fast friends with a couple on vacation, an American couple living in England goes to visit them at their remote country resort. Most of the film’s tension arises out of slightly escalating behaviors and the inherent human psychological condition of aversion to causing discomfort and being rude, even when in the face of extreme and dangerous behavior. It is this psychological phenomena that pushes the tension of the audience and characters alike as all know something is wrong, but plausible deniability keep us pulling along with the madness.
The acting is a major feature to making the film work, and boy is there great acting. McAvoy is about pitch perfect for his character, a seemingly cultured man who is slightly off-kilter and chauvinist. His eyes are wonderfully expressive, and slight grins and disconcerting looks generate the perfect blend of charisma and crazed.
But lest that discount the other wonderful players, look no further than the two lead roles from Mackenzie Davis and Aisling Franciosi. Davis perfectly captures the spirit of a intelligent city girl, trying to be polite, but quickly upset and disconcerted with their hosts. This version plays up the marital tension between her and her husband (Scoot McNairy), which also sets up another layer of tension underlying the entire film. While the writing partially leads to Franciosi’s character being more of a stereotype than the Danish original, she does what she can in her role to make it complex and intriguing.
On that note, it is really the script differences from the Danish original that create the film’s main flaws. It tends to overwrite in several areas, whether with some dialogue choices that seek to explain the particular psychosis of the main villains, or by writing a much more involved ending that loses some of the disquieting and grim atmosphere that solidified the wonderfully dark conclusion of the original. Perhaps it is emblematic of American productions that they feel the need to fill in the negative spaces of a work and embrace a “more is more” attitude.
Speak No Evil is otherwise a thrilling and captivating work. The remake’s localization choices make plenty of sense and do add some unique elements to the work that were not present in the Danish film. Had it found a way to differentiate itself that didn’t go so over-the-top and on the nose, perhaps it would have found itself the superior version. As it stands, this is still worth seeing for McAvoy, and if one desires to not have to deal with subtitles.
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