The remake matches the tedious build-up of the bleak Danish thriller from two years ago, but abandons European arthouse pretensions and opts for a typical Blumhouse pleasure.
NO EVIL FROM THEATRE REACTION! (2024)
It’s creeping up on us, but the American remake of a foreign film is hardly the totem for failed imagination it once was. It’s generous, and it’s practically a lost art in the age of franchise maintenance. How does a breakthrough overseas feature get repurposed as a one-off multiplex programmer? Blumhouse’s latest genre piece, “Speak No Evil” — which rips its title, premise and even entire jokes from Christian Taldrip’s utterly botched festival smash two years ago — is a reminder that the answer is usually pretty simple: End it as a crowd pleaser, in this case with James McAvoy standing out after gleefully playing with his food for 80 minutes.
Like the original, writer-director James Watkins' remake explores a couple who stretch their belief in the kindness of strangers to absurd proportions. Americans Ben and Louise (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis, in a winning reunion from AMC's "Halt and Catch Fire") are first seen listlessly vacationing in Italy with their 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler), before an encounter with Paddy (McAvoy) and his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) brightens the trip. The British couple are sociable enough to compensate for their mute, distant son Ant (Dan Hough). Weeks later, back in their rainy, jobless lives in London, Ben and Louise receive an invitation to spend a weekend at Paddy and Ciara's farm. It's a considerable amount of time to spend with people who are essentially strangers. Anyway, these are the best friends Ben and Louise have managed to gather since moving to Europe.
Watkins introduces Paddy’s dusty country house in a disarming drone shot, from an angle that could also bathe the wreckage of a besieged war zone. The message is clear: this place is no good. The cramped facilities, cluttered with ugly paintings and soiled blankets, bring with them a particularly unwelcome surprise: Agnes has to share a bedroom with Ant. Ben and Louise shrug off the faux pas, but it’s only the first in what will be a punishing gauntlet.
