Film Review: Remake of ‘Speak No Evil’ is entertaining, but lacks edge of original film

A couple of years ago, “Speak No Evil” – a Danish horror film from director Christian Tafdrup – premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, making more than a bit of a splash in the horror world for its razor sharp satire and even sharper depravity. A little over a year later – as is wont to happen – an American remake was announced.

If you ever go to the movies, you’ve probably seen the trailer for James Watkins’ take on “Speak No Evil” (it seems to play before every single film, regardless of genre). If that’s the case, you probably know the general set up:  On a holiday in Italy with their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler), Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and Ben (Scoot McNairy) meet another couple, Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their son, Ant (Dan Hough). The couples end up spending the week together, and later Ciara and Paddy invite Louise and Ben to come spend the weekend with them in their home. They accept, but what starts out as a friendly getaway quickly turns into a horror show.

For most of its runtime, “Speak No Evil” stays fairly true to its 2022 predecessor, but those little differences – and then some really big ones – add up. The 2024 take exaggerates some aspects of the source material and smooths out others, shying away from some of that film’s thornier edges. It’s a safer, more recognizable horror film, staying firmly within its lane of comedy and horror rather than following the arc of the original. There’s no reason to remake a movie two years later and do the exact same thing, and Watkins’ film is well-directed, acted and entertaining. But that conventionality does take a tremendous amount of sting out of the story.

Watkins’ version of the film attempts to explore the same themes as the original, interested in satirizing the idea of deferental politeness – how far are you willing to let someone go in the interest of not offending them? Unlike the original, it doesn’t follow that point all the way through to the end. Part of what makes the original so successful and intriguing is how Tafdrup walks the line of identification and separation. We understand the main couple’s desire to not rock the boat, but at the same time there’s such a remove to the filmmaking, such a purposeful lack of intimacy into what we really know about the characters, that allows us to almost entirely lay the blame for everything that happens at their feet.

Making a more conventional film, however, necessitates more conventional heroes. Ben and Louise don’t necessarily start out heroic – she’s anxious and tense, he’s more than a little useless. But by the film’s climax, they need to make the turn to herodom, something the mood of the original film doesn’t allow for. Ben and Louise are exaggerated versions of their counterparts in the original film, riddled with additional marital strife. Those marital issues contribute to Ben’s feelings of emasculation, feelings that exist in the original film, but are not so directly influenced by Louise as they are here.

When Louise and Ben first see Ciara and Paddy on vacation, they’re drinking by the pool. After a beat, Ben turns to Louise and asks her if she wants a beer. She looks at her watch and scrunches her nose – it’s a bit early, isn’t it? Unsurprisingly, Ben doesn’t get the drink. This dynamic between Louise and Ben continues throughout the film, even as their lives are increasingly in peril. That’s the biggest difference between the two movies – the humor never dies out in the American version. The cast leans into this zany tone and all of them deliver, particularly Davis, whose primness in the face of abject terror leads to great comedic effect. Ben is far more drawn to Paddy and Ciara than Louise, in particular to Paddy’s brand of masculinity (greatly exaggerated by McAvoy). As Ben, McNairy observes Paddy with an open-mouthed, slightly befuddled sense of awe, but each time he attempts to replicate Paddy’s demeanor or step into that masculine role, he fails spectacularly.

But as much as “Speak No Evil” amplifies the characters, it softens the aspects of the original film that make it so unsettling. In one scene, Louise checks on Agnes only to find her missing from her bed. She eventually finds her asleep with Ant, Ciara and Paddy in the other couple’s bed.

This is, obviously, extremely inappropriate. But if the film were in keeping with the original, Louise would have found Agnes in bed with only Paddy, and he would have been completely naked. When Ben and Louise confront Paddy and Ciara about this, Ciara tearfully explains that she and Paddy had a little girl who died, and when she heard Agnes crying she just wanted to soothe her. But in the original, the couple doesn’t try to play on Louise and Ben’s sympathy, but rather their guilt – your daughter wanted you, and you were nowhere to be found. What were we supposed to do?

Again, there’s no reason to remake a movie exactly the same way it was done before. But these changes take the bite and discomfiting edge out of a movie like “Speak No Evil,” leaving the audience with something that, while well made and fun, is a little less challenging and less likely to sit with them long term.

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