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This article was published 13/09/2024 (735 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Based on a grim Danish thriller from just two years ago, this Americanized remake from Blumhouse Productions and English filmmaker James Watkins (Eden Lake, The Woman in Black) loses some of the original’s art-house existentialism and Nordic bleakness.

But with a mesmerizing lead performance from James McAvoy (Split, The Last King of Scotland), all smiling menace and sinister bonhomie, this second go-round works as a deft, dark horror-comedy.

With its deceptively picturesque holiday settings, Speak No Evil could also be classed as “travel horror,” a recently expanding subgenre that includes flicks about rental homes gone wrong and Airbnbs hiding hideous secrets. At its core, this is a cautionary tale about making “couple friends” on vacation.

The story starts with an interlude at a hillside Italian villa, where we meet slightly uptight upper-middle-class Americans Ben and Louise (Halt and Catch Fire’s Scoot McNairy and Station Eleven’s Mackenzie Davis).

They’re struggling with a relocation to London and some professional setbacks. Their marriage is strained, and their parenting of daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) is anxious and hovering.

Then they meet Paddy (McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi of The Fall), parents to Ant (Dan Hough), a shy boy who is unable to speak.

Paddy’s big, bold approach to life seems to offer the opportunity for freewheeling, careless vacation fun, though already we can sense it’s underpinned by something aggressive and unpredictable.

Back in London and once more enmeshed in the stresses of their everyday routine, Ben and Louise receive an invite from Paddy and Ciara to visit them in a remote rural corner of Devon. (There’s no cell service, of course, and no near neighbours.)

Overriding their initial instincts, Ben and Louise accept. What is supposed to be another holiday break gradually turns into the country weekend from hell.

Director Watkins, who also adapted the script from the Danish original, makes a slyly clever decision: He grounds almost all the horror in the film’s low-and-slow lead-up in simple social awkwardness — uncomfortable dinner conversation, unpleasant bedroom situations, weirdo boundaries, enforced group activities, Paddy’s strange taste in music.

The dynamics between the two couples are so cringey and creepy that this would be an awful, awful visit even if the hosts didn’t turn out to be murderous psychopaths.

But of course they do turn out to be murderous psychopaths — and how.

The younger generation reaches this conclusion first. Even though Ant can’t talk, he’s trying urgently to get a life-and-death message to Agnes about what is actually going on in this house.

The grown-ups, meanwhile, are still mired in the social conventions, even as Paddy’s horribly hearty hosting gets darker and more controlling. He goads Ben about his manhood and taunts Louise about her liberal ideals.

While McAvoy dominates every scene he’s in, McNairy and Davis, working together as a believable, relatable married couple, provide an effective counterweight. Even when their decisions defy common sense — and they often do — they convey a human mix of politeness, guilt, weakness, second-guessing and miscommunication.

In comparison to this macabre comedy of manners, which extends past the one-hour mark, the film’s final descent into out-and-out violence can feel a little predictable.

Watkins has had some experience with nihilistic endings (see Eden Lake), but here he has shifted away from the unremittingly brutal conclusion of the first Speak No Evil, and hardcore fans of the Danish original might feel let down. But even if this version doesn’t end as well as it begins, there’s at least one nasty surprise in the final sequence.

For viewers looking for solid horror with an effective and eerie comic undertone, Speak No Evil says a lot.

arts@freepress.mb.ca