'Speak No Evil' is Saved by James McAvoy's Unhinged Performance
Get ready for a tense thrill ride that, unfortunately, has a bit of a bumpy third act. Remade from a 2022 Danish film of the same name, 2024's Speak No Evil is a horror/thriller that builds with a slow burn. Most of Speak No Evil is an effective nail-biter about putting your trust in strangers. What follows are the repercussions of trying to obtain such faith in someone you don't know. The movie does a great job of establishing the atmosphere.
From the first frame, you know something is terribly wrong. The film starts with an anonymous score. All we can hear are the single beats of a soft drum-like instrument. The opening shot is of a little boy's face reflecting off the interior rearview mirror of a car. We don't see who's driving the boy, nor do we know where he's going. All we can tell is that he shouldn't be there. In the next scene, we cut to a lush, sunny location. Here, we are introduced to the Daltons. Ben (Scoot McNairy), Louise (Mackenzie Davis), and their daughter Agnus (Alix West Lefler) meet Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), Paddy (James McAvoy), and their son Ant (Dan Hough). The family the Daltons meet seems nice enough. Ciara is the loving wife, while Paddy is the life of the party. Their son is disabled. He's unable to communicate verbally, showing clear signs of an undiagnosed disability. After making friends with Paddy's family, the Daltons are invited to their house in the English countryside for a bit of a vacation.
Ironically, the characters are conscious of the dumb choice they're about to make. Yet, they make it anyway. Louise points out to Ben that staying at a near-total stranger's house is a recipe for disaster. Like any movie about stupid protagonists, Ben and Louise decide to venture out to Paddy and Ciara's anyway. What could possibly go wrong? As you can guess, when everyone arrives at the house, things begin to get strange. Paddy and Ciara act increasingly bizarre as the first night with the family progresses.
To start things off, Paddy mistreats his disabled son. Secondly, his wife pretends to give him fellatio in front of their new guests as a shock gag to get everyone to loosen up. The fakeout B.J. could be a spoiler, but it's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this family's bizarre behavior.
I was on board for most of the film. The first act is a drag, but it's meant to be one. Like most horror films, act one sets the stage for the victims to be terrorized or killed. It's act two where the good stuff comes. By the middle of the picture, I enjoyed how subtle it was. The picture is building toward a boiling point that, indeed, does explode. Similar to Alfred Hitchcock's bomb theory, the movie builds tension by letting the audience know there is a bomb. The stress comes from not knowing when it's going to go off. There's a lot of disturbing stuff in this film that topples needless blood splatter or paranormal activity to deliver terror. Helming the film's horror elements is a stupendous James McAvoy. McAvoy does his best to be the meanest yet most delightful monster you'll get to know. He's the Hannibal Lecter of the film, minus the cannibalism. The man will charm your pants off, only to kill you later. Also, McAvoy is jacked in this movie, making his character physically intimidating, on top of being a mental menace.
Speak No Evil's real terror stems from Paddy and Cilia gaslighting their hosts. They get them to uncover their dirty laundry to shape their agenda. It's a clever bit of character development used as a device of horror. Unfortunately, the film dumbs itself down by the third act, where everything regresses into a series of predictable chase scenes. We know that the Daltons are stuck in these people's house. Also, since this is Hollywood, it's easy to guess they'll find a way to break out in the end.
Much of the film's intelligence takes a nosedive in favor of cheap scares and typical horror movie antics in the third act. Wouldn't it be interesting for once if the movie didn't end the way audiences wanted it to? Why not pull a Funny Games? Regardless, the early preview audience I saw the film with hooted and hollered all at the appropriate moments. Speak No Evil is a crowd-pleaser. It's a Hollywood horror film that starts smart but ends dumb to appeal to the masses. Thanks to James McAvoy's incredible performance, the movie was entertaining enough for me to see past its flaws. I haven't even begun to get into its plot holes. There's certainly enough to nitpick with Speak No Evil to warrant it as a bad film. Luckily, I can enjoy a movie for what it is without having to pick it apart. When you look at it as an overall psychological thriller, it's pretty good. When it comes to really thinking about the details behind the plot twists your head might hurt with logical questions.
