Samuel LoveAt the bloody climax of 2008’s home invasion shocker The Strangers, one of the film’s sadistic killers is asked by their victim why they are doing these horrible acts. “Because you were home”, the killer chillingly responds. Christian Tafdrup’s harrowing Speak No Evil, recently Hollywoodised (and bastardized) in a remake starring James McAvoy, asks the same question but offers a different – and altogether just as disturbing – answer.
On a sunny holiday in Italy, Danish couple Bjørn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch), and their young daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg), meet the friendly and charismatic Patrick (Fedja van Huêt) and Karin (Karina Smulders), a Dutch couple with a shy son the same age as their daughter. A brief holiday friendship blossoms, before each returns home to their respective homelands. Bjørn and Louise soon thereafter receive an invite to visit Patrick and Karin in their remote rural home in the Netherlands, which they reluctantly accept so as to not appear ungrateful. Over several days of discomfort and disturbing discoveries, Bjørn and Louise begin to discover there is more to their hosts than meets the eye.
Set largely within Patrick and Karin’s isolated home and entirely character-driven, Speak No Evil plays out like theatre. Deliberately paced, the film’s atmosphere of discomfort unfolds very slowly and reinforces the central message – politeness, the unwillingness to speak up, the avoidance of confrontation. As Bjørn and Louise’s hosts exhibit more and more peculiar and impolite behaviour to their guests, it is continually brushed aside or forgiven by Bjørn, even as Louise begins to share her concerns. Over an almost painfully tense 90 minutes, Speak No Evil instils a horrendous sense of foreboding dread through its uncomfortable atmosphere and Sune “Køter” Kølster’s chilling score.
While many horror films like this can risk having the audience lose interest or concern for their characters if their almost-comical lack of survival instinct becomes frustrating, here it is a key part of the narrative and the film’s social commentary. Just how far can one push the boundaries of civility? What does it take to truly snap at your host who has welcomed you into their home? Indeed, the film’s harrowing climax shows you just that. Speak No Evil’s final 15 minutes are among the most cruel and distressing I have seen in a film in many years. Blumhouse’s recent big budget remake sugar-coated and Hollywoodised the climax – unsurprisingly, as I can’t remember the last time a studio film ever went half as far as this did. But it is a shame that the remake is too cowardly to commit to the bleak, cynical nature of the film’s message. Even the original’s writer-director was unimpressed, saying Even the original’s writer-director was unimpressed, saying “I don’t know what it is about Americans…(the remake has) a kind of happy ending, and it is so deep in their culture that America must be able to handle it all”. It’s also pathetic how soon Hollywood decided a remake of this largely-English language thriller was deemed necessary, but that’s for another time . It’s also pathetic how soon Hollywood decided a remake of this largely-English language thriller was deemed necessary, but that’s for another time…
This is a truly bleak film that is hard to shake after the credits roll, and one that will have you asking yourself – what would you do in this situation? It’s certainly easy to say oh, that’s easy, you’d get out of there. But deep down, you know it’s never that simple. Society tells us to be polite, to be grateful, to look the other way. To speak no evil. The film offers no happy ending or positive message, but rather, it doubles down – it simply tells us that the world is full of cruelty, and evil people will take advantage of our politeness if we allow them to. In his 1944 play No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre said “Hell is other people”. Speak No Evil reminds us of that like no other film before it.
SPEAK NO EVIL (2022) is available now on Digital and DVD from Acorn Media
