A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.
Speak No Evil is the most cunningly depraved horror film in years, offering a piercing commentary on the ways we accommodate others to the point of self-subjugation.
Speak No Evil might not be a thrill-a-minute film, but it’s effective in a way that many horror movies just aren’t anymore. Watching it evokes the feeling of inching closer and closer to the end of a cliff; at any moment, you feel like you might still escape the situation until you eventually reach the point of no return.
Thanks to a smart screenplay, excellent, stylish direction, and an outstanding cast from top to bottom, the entire production will unnerve and shake up all watching.
Pay no attention to the shades of late-night cable in the title; Speak No Evil is a lamentably generic name for a movie as stark and unsettling as Christian Tafdrup's queasy, inexorable thriller.