Welcome to Cultoween! Last year, we took a look at some completely random horror gems from any year, which resulted in a lot of possibilities – of course, we had the whole wide genre to sift through! This year, we are limiting things a bit. There’s still the randomness, still the surprise, but instead of allowing for any horror movie, the selection must come from our own collection! We’re picking unseen movies that we currently physically own! A collector’s worst nightmare is spending money on a disc and then never getting around to watching that, so we’re rectifying that and digging into some titles we own but have never watched.
Based on the Danish film of the same name released just 2 years prior, this retelling of a family of three visiting with another family at their secluded farmhouse delves into terrorization, powerlessness, and impropriety as James McAvoy’s character hulks around in a Jekyll-and-Hyde performance that is truly the shining element of this retread.
Like Michael Haneke’s own Funny Games, which he remade in a nearly shot-for-shot retelling of his original film, Speak No Evil assumes most audiences would not want to watch a movie with English subtitles! Instead of forcing viewers to read, it replaces the characters but keeps the overall scope of the film mostly the same. It’s been a few years since I saw the original, but in my memory, the 2024 version excels and suffers from the same ailments.
Particularly, the overall issue with Speak No Evil is also the crux of its theme. Its protagonists are just too damn polite and wholesome, to a point where it stretches reality a bit. Of course, part of the film deals with the elements of politeness that human empathy struggles with – especially when trying not to hurt someone’s feelings results in actual physical pain to yourself. Speak No Evil is an often discomforting and cringe-inducing movie due to its various events – and I would argue may work better as a “foreign film” because of its strangeness to the viewer – and it acts as a sort of reverse The Strangers in that this is not a home invasion, but home entrapment.
McAvoy is easily the best part here, able to pour on the charm and then immediately lose his head in the span of minutes. He truly brings the fear, not just because of his considerable size but also because of the irrationality of his actions. It also just feels like he’s having a damn good amount of fun, which is always great to see.
Overall, if you’ve seen the original Speak No Evil, this Americanized remake probably won’t sway you either way – it retains the same ideas, replaces a couple, but ultimately ends up in the same place. It’s still fairly effective, though, even if the believability nearly crosses a line.
Not really. Besides an occasionally eerie atmosphere, there’s nothing particularly chilling or evocative of the farmhouse, and it doesn’t have any frights or jump scares. Instead it just piles on the discomfiting feeling that you shouldn’t be with these people.
Watch it, but not at Halloween.
This movie deserves a recommendation, particularly if you haven’t seen the original. But don’t throw it on at your Halloween party; it requires an intimate viewing experience for the audience to place themselves in the shoes of the victims.
