Speak no evil: James McAvoy unleashes himself in a very effective suspense [critique]

Produced by Jason Blum, this remake of a Danish film skillfully mixes horror and sociology.

Speak no evil is a remake of a 2022 Danish psychological horror film, Don't say anything (released directly in our country on VOD), which had buzzed so well in the “Midnight section” of the Sundance festival that producer Jason Blum immediately set his sights on it. Social commentary + major angst = perfect material for Blumhouse! “, as James McAvoy, headliner of this new version by James Watkins (Eden Lake, The Lady in Black). But let's start at the beginning: the story begins when bourgeois Americans living in the United Kingdom (Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis and their little girl) meet, while on holiday in Italy, a British family (James McAvoy, Aisling Franciosi and their little boy), as noisy and relaxed as they are polite and reserved. They nevertheless hit it off very well and, a few months later, the Americans are invited to spend a weekend with the British. But as soon as they cross the threshold of their hosts' house, unease sets in…

Unease that will then spend most of the film climbing, climbing, and climbing again. We think that's it, that the tension is at its peak? Well no, here we go again… James Watkins excels at creating a climate of diffuse anxiety and latent threat that is soon downright suffocating, helped in his enterprise by an unleashed McAvoy in lad warm, always on the verge of exploding and revealing his thick brute nature – his time with Shyamalan (in Split And Glass) has clearly left its mark on the actor. We suspect that all this will lead to something horrible, but the essential thing is in the path taken to lead us to the climax: a story studded with a thousand small sociological observations by turns amusing or chilling, in the service of a reflection on submission to authority, toxic masculinity and social differences that end up forming unbridgeable chasms – Speak no evil sometimes feels like a Blumhouse production directed by a disciple of Ruben Östlund. The third act, with its airs of Straw dogsis less radical than that of the original film, more predictable and “Americanized”, but justifies in a certain way the existence of this remake, which works very well in a double program with Don't say anything.

By James Watkins. With James McAvoy, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis… In theaters September 18.