The Speak No Evil Remake Trailer Promises The Vacation From Hell [CinemaCon 2024]
One of the most upsetting horror films of recent years is getting the Hollywood treatment, and the trailer is finally here. Christian Tafdrup's "Speak No Evil" debuted in 2022, with the Danish filmmaker zeroing in on our shared desire to avoid conflict and remain polite in social situations, revealing some discomfiting truths about our capacity for self-destruction in the process. The "Speak No Evil" remake from Blumhouse, then, will attempt to translate what was already a startling effective film for English audiences, with "Eden Lake" director James Watkins at the helm.
Just how the James McAvoy and Mackenzie Davis-starring remake will manage to match the original is perhaps the biggest question here, mainly because the 2022 movie was already brilliant, but also because Tafdrup has spoken numerous times about how he was inspired by his own culture and thought "suppressing feelings and being dictated by social behavior was a very Scandinavian problem." But as he quickly found out, this aspect of the original film was one of the main reasons audiences found "Speak No Evil" strangely relatable, despite its depraved content and one of the most disturbing endings imaginable.
With that in mind, then, there's no reason why an English remake should necessarily fail, even if it will take a lot for it to recapture the tone and impact of the original. We will, of course, have to wait until "Speak No Evil" releases on September 13 to see how things play out. /Film's Ryan Scott was on-hand at CinemaCon 2024 in Las Vegas, where Universal Pictures provided a sneak peek at their forthcoming projects, including Watkins' remake. For his part, Watkins described this set as being "just like summer camp, with a slight deviant edge."
Will this version of Speak No Evil go there?
The original version of "Speak No Evil" had horror fans reeling with its audacious ending (no spoilers here), but we can't help but wonder if the American version, from a major studio like Universal, will be willing and able to go quite that far and push that many of the audiences' buttons. The trailer certainly does an admirable job at capturing an unnerving, disturbing tone and tapping into the uncomfortability that can arise in awkward social situations, but it remains to be seen if Watkins will fully open the floodgates and give us something truly unforgettable.
Here's the film's official synopsis:
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" hits theaters on September 13, 2024.