Lessons Learned: The 2024 Edition

As has always been true of being a chubby person with short legs, I tend to run slow. It's as true in a 5K as it is in blogging, where my 16 year and still going tradition has been to do the annual wrap-up in the middle of January, closing the month with my best-of list. More importantly is the SECOND to last week, where I do the more vital work of gathering up one lesson gleaned from each of the films I've covered over the past 365 days. 

It's by far the most educational part of my life. Here you go!

Home Economics 

If you can see it, you can sew it!  – Zombie Night

Household Tips

Always stock your home bar with top shelf alcohol, both for optimum cocktail service and most effective molotov cocktail service – The Cat

Lessons In Cultural Sensitivity (Domestic Edition)

In Georgia, it's considered rude to close a door behind you when behind chased by a homicidal maniac…Hence, the leading cause of death in Georgia is being hacked to death by homicidal maniacs -- Ride Scare 

Lessons In Cultural Sensitivity (International Edition)

There are plenty of white gang members in Sweden (though they rarely make the cut in feel-good corporate video ads) – The Conference

Holland is a cheese country -- Speak No Evil

The French are lovable for their ability to cook and be cool – Storm Warning

Thinking a cursed idol is a Mexican salt shaker is a common reaction among the ignorant – The Power

The Rules of Youth

Put enough teenagers together and you're bound to have a food fight – Wolf’s Hole

Powder puff is girl's football for girls that don't want to have it called football – There’s Something Wrong With the Children

Fashion Fever

If you don't want people to mock you for wearing a cape, just don't wear a cape around the kind of people you know will mock you for wearing a cape – The Alpines

Once your identity is revealed, you could save a lot of aggravation by NOT wearing your slasher mask that impedes peripheral vision -- Final Summer

A thick side bang will not protect you from blood modem ghosts – Don’t Click

The Art of the Pickup

Telling a hot chick you just met that she shares a name with your mother is not the hot pickup line you hear in your head – The Ledge

Travel Tips

When checking into any questionable hotel, remember to first check the soap – 6:45

You won't find Jujubees in a small town – Dark Harvest

Biology Field Work

Frothy blood comes from the lungs – The Stairs

Pathology season really picks up during the holidays – Pathology

Even Oxford-educated morgue attendants eat messy sandwiches over corpses – Split Second

Tech Tips

See, all you people who look at my computer screen and wince, SEE: having dozens of tabs open rather than clicking and backtracking is MUCH MORE USEFUL AN EXPERIENCE FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED THANK YOU VERY MUCH – Searching

Career Advice

Being professional means no ogling or drooling – Snowmageddon

Comfortable footwear is the real key to leveling up your career – The Mill

When attending a cocktail party in your third trimester, always accessorize with a purse large enough to hold your bladder – Elevator

Never trust a woman in a blazer – Killer Coworker

Fun Facts About the Holidays

You don't observe Halloween in the manufacturing industry – Totally Killer

The true meaning of Christmas is sacrifice (as in, human) – The Christmas Spirit

Relationships Of All Sorts

It's not a booty call if you live together – Humane

A real friend remembers your life-threatening allergies – It’s What’s Inside

A stranger is just a google search assistant you haven't met -- Run

Getting To Know Satan

The best way to decipher whether a creature is a devil or a fish is to see if it bleeds -- Maneater

The devil may do a lot of bad things, but he also supports waterproof eyeliner – Satan’s Triangle

History Lessons

One should always use some caution with free libraries, but particularly in the 1980s when they weren’t actually a thing – Mr. Crocket

Mansplaining was just as bad in the '90s, particularly if you enjoyed CD shopping at the mall -- Murder At My Door

Traditional 18th century wedding gifts included the timeless apron, but if you REALLY cared about the bride to be, you brought her the severed finger of an executed murderer – The Devil’s Bath

I Can Math

Nothing multiplied by ten still adds up to nothing – The Last Sentinel

Believe In Yourself

You only need three toes to master social media -- Slotherhouse

Senior Living

The best way to distract an old lady is to ask about her grandkids – Jack’s Back

No one can live long enough to deserve the horrors of a children's choir – The Manor

Basic Psychology

Most people don't crave a big breakfast after watching their friend and a batch of strangers murdered the night before – Don’t Look Away

It takes a lot of energy to hate a seven year old – The Passenger

Acting Is Hard

Chekhov is child's play compared to dying in a low budget slasher – Mute Witness

Law Enforcement Facts

Police interrogation videos include are recorded via multiple angles  – Summoned

Basic Survival

You have to do what a girl holding a gun tells you to do – The Blackout Experiment

Zombies are tempted, but not taken by the game of fetch...unless it involves tampons -- It Stains the Sand Red

Lesser Known Hobbies

According to dorks, LARPing is fun – Fantasy Island

The trauma Olympics are way more competitive than glee club – Dark Nature

Words Matter

There's a difference between being lost on a creepy abandoned penal colony and being stranded on a creepy abandoned penal colony – The Breed

Corporate Culture

Nothing gets executive attention like the threat of a virgin sacrifice -- Arcade

And the Most Important Fact of 2024

The Requin

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.