• Release year: 2024
• Director: James Watkins.
• Producer: Jason Blum.
• Screenplay by: Christian Tafdrup, Mads Tafdrup and James Watkins.
• Cinematography by: Tim Maurice-Jones.
• Music by: Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans.

Shotgun Commentary: despite the great acting, this film holds no mystery to anyone who’s watched the trailer and, even by horror standards, it features way too much nonsense.

Review

Speak No Evil is a horror story about what happens when ridiculous social conventions override your instincts and intuition. Some countries have translated the title to a more appropriate “don’t talk to strangers”, which is essentially the moral of the film, along with don’t be a d*ck and listen to your wife’s very justifiable concerns. Both staples of the genre, really.

Cheap tension

The narrative follows Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise Dalton (Mackenzie Davis), and their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler), as they make friends with another couple with a child during the holidays. Some time after the holidays, and despite barely spending time with them, they make the spontaneous decision to accept said couple’s invitation to their home, setting in motion a nightmare that will scar them for life. Honestly, they deserve it, it’s almost sad that the film isn’t a bit more gory.

The feature is great at being stressful, there is a brutal amount of tension due to the capriciousness of James McAvoy’s character Paddy, their host, and his strange relation with his wife (Aisling Franciosi) and his son (Dan Hough). Sadly, this unpredictability doesn’t extend to the storyline, as it flows just as one expects and each “reveal” is but a dull confirmation of your suspicions. It might be more shocking if the spectator hasn’t watched the trailer beforehand, but seeing as Paddy has essentially the same red-flag presentation as Ryle in It Ends With Us (2024), that is questionable.

Same old, same old

Speaking of questionable, there are so many moments that have no business in a film like this. From a good psychological horror movie, one expects characters to be at least somewhat reasonable with their behaviour, but the way Ben and Louise change their minds spontaneously to the opposite of what had just been established reminds of Cabin in the Woods (2011) and makes you wonder whether they’re being sprayed with something. Spoiler, they are not.

Regrettably, this is but many things that simply don’t have an explanation, like why the child yells for a bit at night and then calms down, why clearly uncomfortable people put up with the source of discomfort when there’s no need whatsoever, or why don’t the victims call the police after confirming their fears. This type of unexplained moments and nonsensical situations that only work to keep the film going forward when it makes no sense are comical in films where the whole point is to watch a scary comedy. However, when a movie expects to be taken seriously as psychological horror, rookie mistakes like an intelligent character not grabbing their attacker’s weapon after rendering them unconscious show incredibly low standards in storytelling.

Audiences can let things slip, like the lack of logic in the trio still being in the house for the last half hour of the film just for the sake of lengthening a story that should’ve already been over. But even the most content of spectators has a limit of shenanigans they are willing to take, and a great cast is not going to keep them from reaching it.

Parents or children?

That being said, the main course of this feature is parenting. When did it become normal for people to leave their kids with a nanny while on holiday? This might be harsh but, if you are not willing to spend your free time with your kids, don’t have kids. It’s like getting a dog and then hiring someone else to pet it. Kids are not accessories, they are not props for your Instagram feed nor decorations for your house. If you don’t like them enough to sacrifice your lifestyle for them, don’t have them, simple as that. The human race is not going to go extinct just because you don’t have kids, so move on to the next superficial fashion that will keep you entertained for the next ten minutes, don’t condemn another human being to a life of absent parents.

Plus, you let your child ride a motorbike with a stranger without a helmet? What is wrong with you? Are you hoping for an abortion ten years too late? Also, if you care so much about what strangers think of you that you force your child to do something she doesn’t want to do just to please them, please just remove yourself from that kid’s life. If you are a child yourself, no human should be in your care.

Last addition about this topic, if your partner is trying to force your child to do something they don’t want to do because they are feeling peer-pressured, DO SOMETHING. Staying quiet makes you just as guilty. You are a parent, act like it.

Death by incompetence

On this note, let’s talk about the real villain of the movie. No, I’m not talking about McAvoy in yet another tank-topped, beast-behaving role, I’m talking about Ben, a man so confused about his role in society that his instincts have been completely annulled. Instead, he follows around Paddy like Ken did men in suits and horses, aimlessly and with the dangerous curiosity of a monkey about to receive a gun.

Ben registers Paddy’s behaviour and lifestyle as a life goal, making him admire and envy the man without even noting his incredibly toxic behavioural patterns until it’s too late. Caught up in his childish desire for Paddy’s approval, he behaves like a confused cave man, ignoring his wife’s concerns, pressuring his daughter to do something she’s not comfortable with, and risking his life and his family’s for the sake of getting along with what he considers to be a role model, a more “manly” man, if you will.

His frail masculinity is the main, but not the only, trait that make Ben so unlikeable. When in peril, he makes all the right decisions, hurting himself when there is no need for it, freaking out when he should be helping, gifting us with the lamest hammer attack in the history of hammer attacks… Basically, everything and anything that can make a character ridiculous in a horror film, he does, making Louise the only adult in the situation.

Chaotic writing

While good female representation is something one expects and looks forward to, especially in horror where the main characters are usually women, making their partner completely useless is not the way to prop them up, especially if you are unsure of who you want them to be. Making a character lame in a feature can be comedic, but in this case, it makes you turn to the other main character that can save the day, in this case, Louise.

The issue with that is that the spectators will take closer note of her behaviour, so if the character is not properly built, not even Davis’ acting skills will hide the glitches, especially when they appear in the most relevant situations. What exactly is her criteria for intervening or not? Where are her limits set? Why is she incredibly clever and then irrationally dumb over the course of five minutes? This indecision plagues her character and, despite being somewhat understandable at first, the incoherence gets ridiculous after a while.

The beast, the legend, the… same character, again

Last but not least, James McAvoy. He’s great at crazy villains, in fact, if you’ve watched Split (2016) or Glass (2019), you’ve seen this exact same character. Were you to tell me this is a spin-off of that saga where the beast personality has taken over for a few years, I would 100% believe you. Still, he’s scary and intense, unnerving and raw, so it is a good performance.

Does it get a bit intense? Yes, so much so that you are kind of tired of looking at him by the end of the film. Was that hunting scene necessary? Well, no. Not unless you’re the kind of person who needs a video in addition to the drawings to build an IKEA furniture. That scene feels like a step-by-step guide about what is happening and what will take place afterwards in case the audience, after over an hour of movie, still hasn’t understood what they are watching.

All in all, Speak No Evil delivers the tension and stress promised in their marketing…and not much else. The story is built on sand, and not even the great performances of the very talented cast it features helps it save face. It is a good horror watch, but ultimately not specially memorable.

Thanks to Universal for big screen access! Speak No Evil will be released the 13th of September in UK and US.

Advice to take from this movie:

• The ending of this film, the last few seconds, speaks volumes about the bullsh*t nature of the concept of “women’s sensitivities”.
• If you have a certain set of principles, but you are willing to ignore them whenever a random person pushes you a little, hate to break it to you, but you don’t actually have principles.
• A great cast can’t save a narrative that makes no sense.

What’s your take? Have you watched Speak No Evil? What do you think of the characters’ decision-making abilities?

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