With Halloween coming up, we should review some of the basic rules for horror movies.
One of the most important rules, especially for Sundance horror movies, is avoid the charming strangers you don’t really know who invite you to their house for a visit — their isolated house — in the country — with no neighbors for miles around.
In “Speak No Evil,” Ben and Louise Dalton are an American couple transplanted to England. While in Italy, they form a vacation friendship with Britishers Paddy and Ciara, who afterwards invite the Yanks to their home in the West Midlands.
The Americans agree — not with a lot of enthusiasm. Once they arrive, the vibes are uneasy and become more so from Paddy, played by James McAvoy, and Ciara, played by Aisling Franciosi.
They’re crude, they play music too loud, they foist meat at the dinner table on vegetarian Louise and they take liberties, not only with their boy Ant — a mysteriously mute, terrified child, but with the Daltons’ daughter Agnes, an emotionally fragile tween.
Louise, played by Mackenzie Davis, is by temperament inclined to protest. Ben, played by Scoot McNairy, wants to just go along. They’re already facing marital and career problems and the aggravations of this visit aren’t helping.
Both the original film and the re-make pose the same question. When do you draw the line with people who turn from annoying to creepy to scary?
And when the movie’s deep dark secret is revealed, it taps into the fear felt by all parents that in a nightmare situation, they won’t be able to protect their children.
No Spoilers here! Let’s just say that the European original had a bleak, bone-chilling conclusion.
The new version, directed and written by British filmmaker James Watkins, is more comforting, as the civilized heroes summon up the moxie to fight back.
The result is an extended climax of nail-biting suspense and violent cliffhangers, which is more satisfying for a U.S. audience, but also more conventional.
“Speak No Evil” raises three-and-a-half goosebumps on a scale of five.
