James McAvoy Terrorizes Entire Family in Speak No Evil Thriller Trailer

The trailer for the Hollywood remake of Say Nothing has just been released and it's pretty creepy.

This is not a recent phenomenon. Hollywood likes to appropriate the best ideas from Asian and European cinema, very often at its own risk. So when in April 2023, a remake of the Danish thriller Do not say anything released in 2022 was announced, some were surprised. You usually have to wait a few years before American industry gets involved in producing ITS version of things. Here, two years were enough and the new film is called: Speak No Evil. Here is its trailer:

“You will regret your vacation. Never accept an invitation from strangers.” The everyday self and the vacation self are quite different, aren't they? Just like in the original scenario, Speak No Evil tells the story of two families who meet during their vacation in Tuscany. Life is Beautiful is colorful as the first thirty seconds of the trailer suggest.

In its version from Denmark, the families are Danish and Dutch. In its Hollywood version, they are…? We don't know, but their names were changed to sound less Scandinavian. Patrick Field performed by James McAvoy decides with his wife Ciara to offer their new friends a visit to their large isolated property – in memory of the good old days in Italy. That's when they might have suspected something was wrong. Arriving in the hope of having a pleasant stay, Patric and Ciara ultimately turn out to be strange.

Just like in the trailer for the original film, we find the sequence where the host insists (very very loudly) to her guest that she eat a piece of meat – she who is a vegetarian. But what if that was all it was! The more the trailer progresses, the more the behavior of the hosts is disruptive, embarrassing – even becomes downright uncomfortable. The stay turns into a nightmare. “We will go out as if nothing had happened”declares the mother, prisoner of her hosts. “We’ve been pretending since we got here.”, replies the girl. Stay so as not to offend? Stay because escape is impossible?

As for this little mute boy who tries to scream, can we imagine that his tongue was deliberately cut out because he was too talkative? In any case, it is with this idea that the trailer closes.

On the left the little boy Do not say anything (2022) and on the right that of Speak no Devil (2024)

Nothing innovative in the plot compared to the original film. What's the point of making a remake then? Perhaps the answer lies with the actors. James McAvoy sends shivers down your spine. His build is imposing and his fixed gaze is that of a psychopath. Already in Splitthe actor nominated for a BAFTA for his role in The Last King of Scotland had managed to convince the public of his talents as a performer by playing a multifaceted and unbalanced character. Without doubt, it is the added value of this remake.

To direct Charles Xavier of the X-Men, we find James Watkins who previously made Eden Lake, a horror film with Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly, and also the episode “Shut Up and Dance” of Black Mirror – a horribly twisted and intense episode.

In the cast in addition to the Scottish actor: Mackenzie Davis (Alone on Mars, Blade Runner 2049) and Aisling Franciosi (The Fall). The release is scheduled in France on September 18, 2024.