Speak No More Evil

 

It’s been a while since we’ve done a good ol’ compare and contrast. While I generally find “the original is better than the remake!” arguments dull, I also find the very idea of a talented filmmaker re-adapting very new material for an English-speaking audience usually has SOMETHING to say about the general perception of what a studio or artist thinks about its target.

So here we are. Two years between films, one month between my own review, we’re speaking no more evil.

Quick Plot: Basically, for about 65 minutes, 2024’s Speak No Evil follows the exact same beats as, you know, Speak No Evil. A somewhat uptight couple (Louise and Ben Dalton) with a daughter named Agnes and her beloved stuffed bunny befriend a pair of free spirits (Paddy and Ciara) and their tongueless son while on vacation. A few months later, Louise and Ben visit Paddy and Ciara at their secluded country estate. Tensions rise, violence ensues. 

Having watched the original Speak No Evil so recently, it’s impossible for me to review this Americanized version without directly referencing it. If you haven’t seen either film, the easy boil down is that the 2022 film is darker, sharper, and yes, better. The 2024 version is perfectly adequate as a standalone horror film, particularly as it’s stacked with several excellent actors doing very good work. But the stark differences in the third act are almost The Vanishing-levels of silliness. 

So let’s spoil.

Both.

Before we get to the major change, it’s worth noting that there are a few character differences that actually work well for James Watkins’ adaptation. Louise and Ben are expats who came to London for Ben’s job offer that fell apart. They have money, but no real sense of home. Louise has been so detached that she started a texting flirtation with a dad from Agnes’s school, driving an even bigger wedge in her fragile marriage. Sex is monthly at best. 

Which, oddly enough, leads us to one of the first real changes in this version that seems to have been made deliberately and does NOT work. In the original film, Louise and Bjorn’s first real discomfort with their hosts comes after they find their daughter sleeping in a nude Patrick and Karin’s bed. It’s perfectly reasonable that this would be the thing to finally drive them out of their perfect guest facade, but the reason WHY Agnes ended up there is key: she knocked and knocked on her parents’ door, but they were busy having sex. It’s clear that the guilt and embarrassment over this is what keeps Louise somewhat humbled.

No such dynamics happen here, as our Americans have to feel a bit more likable. As in the original, they almost make their exit but return when Agnes realizes she’s left her stuffed bunny behind.  Some sense of normalcy is restored, until Paddy’s treatment of Ant becomes intolerable. The next big change is one that KIND of makes sense, but also leads to a very different movie. 

Big spoilers (in case you needed a fourth warning): in both films, the host couple is revealed to be a pair of serial killers who lure small families in, murder the parents, and steal the child, trading that last bit with each cycle. In Christian Tafdrup’s film, Bjorn discovers this by finding the boy (Abel in that version) drowned. He quietly tries to pack his family and leave without telling them what’s going on, only to be caught on the way out. Without having communicated his discovery to Louise, she’s easy prey. Agnes’s tongue is cut out, and Louise and Bjorn accept their fate: death by stoning, all because they couldn’t be rude. 

It’s one of the darkest endings I’ve seen in some time, but it’s also pretty perfect. Speak No Evil is a cruel film, yet it all adds up. Everything this family does (and neglects to do) leads them to this. 

James Watkins’ version is…different. It’s Ant who tells (well, shows and mimes) his family’s secret to Agnes, who then goes and tells her parents, who then spend a fair amount of time figuring out how to excuse themselves from being murdered. This leads to the last act being pure Home Alone siege.

It’s a choice.  

On one hand, I appreciate an only-two-years-later remake reimagining its source material. Otherwise, what’s the point? 2022’s Speak No Evil is mostly in English, so you can’t even make the “Americans don’t like to read” argument. But apparently, if you’re James Watkins, you can make some other “Americans are” arguments. 

Here’s an excerpt from a Deadline interview with the director:

American culture is very, whether it’s your frontier mentality or your can-do culture, I didn’t believe my characters would be as quiescent [laughs]. I didn’t believe that they would, confronted with mortal danger and their child in mortal danger, at least try to run, hide or do something. Christian’s version is a brilliant satire on Danish compliance, but as soon as I changed it to a different culture, different things apply. 

Sure? 

As an American, my personal opinion here is that James Watkins is giving us far too much credit. The idea that these outsiders could, ultimately rather easily, murder three experienced murderers (well, two and one accomplice) and escape relatively unharmed seems pretty darn optimistic, particularly from the same man behind Eden Lake.  

It’s kind of, well, dumb. And maybe even a bit insulting? There is certainly something to be said with just how the violence unrolls, with Mackenzie Davis’s Louise emerging as the real alpha. The toxic bromance of Scoot McNairy being blinded by the sheer magnetism of James McAvoy’s masculine energy zooms in even further on the dynamics in Tafdrup’s film (or maybe that’s because the only other film I’ve seen McNairy in is Nightbitch, where his husband character plays a similarly shrinking role). Watkins even tosses in one line that casts Aisling Franciosi’s Ciara into a completely different light that opens up a pile of moral questions the film doesn’t have time to answer. 

2024’s Speak No Evil has interesting ideas, a game cast, and strong filmmaking. Even with all of that, things simply don’t add up to something anywhere nearly as starkly satisfying as its predecessor. 

High Points

Enough can’t be said about the performances, all of which work off each other to create clear relationships ready to explode

Low Points

Sure, the Daltons don’t immediately transform into trained assassins, but their victory still feels silly

Lessons Learned

The internet has made us all very stressy

When you’re in the country, you’re going to find old stains

It’s okay to think things, but you’re not supposed to say them

Rent/Bury/Buy

Here’s the thing: many genre fans will likely have a good time with 2024’s Speak No Evil if that’s how they start, and backtracking to the 2022 film may make that pack an even bigger punch. At this point, anyone approaching either film probably knows the big twist, so if you’ve read this far without watching either (which I told you several times not to do), then why not start with the lighter course to make the main that much better? The new film is now streaming on Peacock, with the original on Shudder.