Speak No Evil (2024)

 

Speak No Evil is James Watkins' remake of the Danish psycho-horror film of the same name from 2022. If one were to strip away the narrative clunkiness, one would find the new picture celebrates the power of existential threat to restore the tattered fabric of family life. The original picture was a much bleaker story.

Watkins' picture is about the perils of a small family -- Ben Dalton (Scott McNairy), wife Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and daughter Agnes (Alex West Lexler) -- who are visiting Paddy (James McAvoy), wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and mute son Ant (Dan Hough) at their remote farmhouse in England after becoming fast friends while vacationing in Italy. (Who does that?) 

When they arrive from their London flat, the Daltons quickly discover Paddy is a boundaries-obliterator -- stepping all over Louise's sensibilities as a vegetarian and poking at Ben's apparent insecurities as a cuckolded beta. 

As events unfold, Paddy becomes increasingly insinuating and Ciara more intrusive, much to Louise's chagrin (Davis is a particularly potent force here). Eventually Agnes, between panic attacks and emotional meltdowns, discovers the non-speaking Ant holds the key to his family's weirdness.

Even if one were to give in to the bottomless gullibility that is the setting for Watkins' version of the Danish creep out, one might still be frustrated by the bone-headedness on display -- especially that of Ben, a master of indecision and self-pity. 

To be fair, some of Ben and Louise's "unspeakably" bad choices can be attributed to the couple's emotional distancing from each other and 12-year-old Agnes's arrested development. To wit a stuffed support bunny rabbit plays an important role in this tale.

In the end, Watkins' Speak No Evil is a tour de force for the sneering, scenery-chewing McAvoy's maniacal Paddy, a psychotic Daddy Dearest candidate, for sure. The movie is a messy mash up of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf's toxic passive-aggressiveness and Straw Dogs' bloody aggressive-aggressiveness. But it's occasionally an entertaining one-off mess.