Universal Pictures and Blumhouse's remake of disturbing Danish horror film Speak No Evil is now in theaters, and, as you've probably heard, this new version makes some signifiant changes to the ending of the relentlessly bleak original.
Spoilers follow.
Both movies have the same premise and play out very similarly up to a point: A family of three befriend a seemingly gregarious doctor and his wife and son while on vacation and agree to go and stay with them for the weekend. Before too long, the friendly facade begins to slip, and it soon becomes clear that something is very wrong in the household.
It ultimately comes to light that the "doctor" and his wife are deranged serial killers who murder couples with children, before removing the child's tongue and forcing them to pretend to be their son or daughter to help entice new victims.
In the original, the protagonists' unwillingness to offend their hosts spells disaster, and they are brutally stoned to death while their daughter has her tongue cut out! The U.S. remake completely alters this ending, with Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and Ben (Scoot McNairy) Dalton managing to escape with their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) and the killers' latest "son," Ant (Dan Hough).
Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) falls from the roof of her house and breaks her neck, while Ant smashes an incapacitated Paddy's (McAvoy) face in with a rock.
When an American family is invited to spend the weekend at the idyllic country estate of a charming British family they befriended on vacation, what begins as a dream holiday soon warps into a snarled psychological nightmare. From Blumhouse, the producer of The Black Phone, Get Out and The Invisible Man, comes an intense suspense thriller for our modern age, starring BAFTA award-winner James McAvoy (Split, Glass) in a riveting performance as the charismatic, alpha-male estate owner whose untrammeled hospitality masks an unspeakable darkness.
Speak No Evil stars also Mackenzie Davis (Terminator: Dark Fate, Halt and Catch Fire) and SAG award-winner Scoot McNairy (Argo, A Quiet Place Part II) as American couple Louise and Ben Dalton, who, along with their 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler; The Good Nurse, Riverdale), accept the weekend-holiday invitation of Paddy (McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi; Game of Thrones, The Fall) and their furtive, mute son Ant (newcomer Dan Hough).
Written for the screen and directed by James Watkins, the writer-director of Eden Lake and the award-winning gothic ghost story The Woman in Black, Speak No Evil is based on the screenplay of the 2022 Danish horror sensation Gæsterne, written by Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup. That film earned 11 Danish Film Awards nominations, the Danish equivalent of the Oscars.
Speak No Evil is produced by Jason Blum (Five Nights at Freddy’s, M3GAN) for Blumhouse and by Paul Ritchie (McMafia, The Ipcress File) and is executive produced by Beatriz Sequeira for Blumhouse, Jacob Jarek and Christian Tafdrup.
Do you plan on catching this one on the big screen?