A family’s dream holiday turns nightmarish in dark thriller (and sometimes black comedy) Speak No Evil. Viewers will be suffering some level of discomfort for the entire running time, reports Daniel Rutledge.
Speak No Evil (2024)
Getting this remake in cinemas just two years after the original played in cinemas at film festivals is a bit odd. Maybe before this year ends, some 2024 pop artist will release a cover of As It Was by Harry Styles and it’ll hit number one all over again, too. Whatever. But anyone questioning the reason this Speak No Evil exists should rest assured there is an emphatic answer: James McAvoy celebrating his villain era. Hard. He brilliantly portrays a sometimes charming, sometimes disgusting, always unnerving beast of a man. The performance is sensational and justification enough for such an immediate remake, but there’s much more to like about this film.
Although it’s labelled a psychological thriller, this leans into black comedy in a devilishly delightful way. It’s definitely a stress-inducing watch in which viewers will be suffering some level of discomfort for the entire running time, so perhaps it’s nervous laughter that kept burbling around the cinema, but for those with the right sense of humour, this film has plenty of moments of hilarity. But then indeed, the more pathetic aspects of modern masculinity can be pretty damn funny and this film hones right in on that, skewering it in both Alpha and Beta forms.
The guts of Speak No Evil is an exploration of microaggressions and societal acceptance of them. It’s about just how far people will go to avoid confrontation; how desperate we are to bypass the awkwardness of calling someone out for disrespecting us—or even a member of our family. The characters avoiding awkwardness conversely makes for incredibly awkward viewing, with rich material to draw on as commentary on gender roles among other elements of modern society. Upper middle-class American sensibilities clashing with lower-class English folk also brings with it intriguing cultural observations.
Fans of the original film should note this one follows most of the same beats very closely up until the third act, when it spins off into something entirely different. Without wanting to give much away, it shifts to a more conventional horror movie climax. However one may feel about that, the prowess with which the conventional horror shit is delivered is impressive. Sure, characters make stupid decisions that further imperil them rather than leading to an easy escape, but that’s par for the course in this sort of thing. It’s very effectively done, appropriately gripping and actually quite unpredictable, even if you’ve seen the original.
This late shift toward a more orthodox Western style does rip a lot of originality away from the experience as a whole. What it’s ultimately saying has been said before, and what it ends up doing has definitely been done before, many times over. It’s thus not nearly as impactful or memorable a film as the original, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a well-done thriller with solid horror and dark comedy elements, driven by a thoroughly enjoyable James McAvoy performance. That makes it good enough to comfortably recommend and if you relish tense, discomforting cinema this is well worth a watch.
