The Speak No Evil remake is a baffling, frustrating, and oddly entertaining entry into the Blumhouse universe—basically, it’s like being invited to a dinner party you know you shouldn’t go to, but hey, you were curious. So here we are, with a movie that manages to both stick close to the 2022 original and inexplicably shoot off in an entirely different direction. Let’s talk about what works, what doesn’t, and why this remake is like someone trying to “fix” an incredible horror film with duct tape and some sugar-coated resolutions.

James Watkins, the British director responsible for Eden Lake and The Woman in Black, helms this English-language remake. The problem? Watkins and co. decide to ignore the fact that Speak No Evil was meant to leave you in an emotional pit of despair. Instead, this version feels like it’s prepping for an American audience that just can’t handle that kind of relentless doom. The original Speak No Evil ends on a bleak note that’ll have you questioning why you even got out of bed that day. This one? Well, it gives you a nice, bloody bow to wrap everything up, guns blazing and all. You can almost hear the audience clapping, “We survived!” But did they really, or did we just get cheated out of the true horror?

The movie follows Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis – Blade Runner 2049, Terminator: Dark Fate, The Turning, Station Eleven), an American couple who meet Paddy (James McAvoy – Split, It Chapter Two) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi – The Nightingale, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Stopmotion) while vacationing in Italy. Paddy and Ciara, who are all too charming, invite Ben and Louise to visit them at their remote farmhouse in the UK, where things start to feel weirder than that time your weird cousin tried to sell you NFTs at Thanksgiving.

What starts as “just some awkward British banter” spirals into a full-blown nightmare. Louise’s alarms are going off—Paddy and Ciara aren’t right. But Ben, ever the spineless pushover, keeps shrugging off her concerns. From feeding a vegetarian meat (gasp!) to letting their kid hang out with Paddy and Ciara’s suspiciously mute son Ant, things escalate until, surprise surprise, Ben and Louise find themselves trapped in a psychological hell. The slow-burn tension leads to a violent, chaotic climax where knives, guns, and a whole lot of poor decision-making take center stage.

Let’s not kid ourselves—James McAvoy is here to chew the scenery and chew it he does. His portrayal of Paddy is uncomfortably fun. He’s got that slimy charm dialed up to 11. He’s the guy who makes you laugh at dinner, but then later you’re not sure if he’s joking when he says he knows how to bury a body. McAvoy’s Paddy is terrifying because you can see why Ben, the world’s biggest pushover, would think this guy’s awesome—right until the moment things go off the rails and you realize, oh yeah, this dude’s a full-blown psychopath. Still, while McAvoy is menacing, his character lacks the subtlety of the original. You don’t get to question, even for a second, if this guy’s evil. He’s bad. Period.

Here’s where things really stumble. The 2024 version tries to shoehorn in more backstory, mainly with Ben and Louise’s crumbling marriage. Do we need this? Absolutely not. It drags down the film’s pace and adds some weird morality tale about modern relationships that feels completely unnecessary. In the original, the simplicity of the setup is what makes it so terrifying—two families, one unknowingly walking into the jaws of death. But here, the extra baggage about Louise’s emotional affair and Ben’s fragile masculinity feels like filler, like someone thought we wouldn’t care enough about their demise without this melodrama. Newsflash: we didn’t need it.

At least visually, Watkins knows what he’s doing. The cinematography captures that eerie, isolated farmhouse vibe perfectly, turning the English countryside into a claustrophobic nightmare. Every shot lingers just a little too long, making you squirm in your seat as you wait for the inevitable horror to unfold. It’s a tense, slow build, and the film excels when it’s just letting the dread simmer.

The biggest issue with this remake is the ending. The original Speak No Evil was savage. It didn’t care about your feelings or your desire for catharsis. The couple is killed, their child mutilated and abducted, and you’re left sitting in silence wondering what the hell just happened. It was brutal, it was unforgiving, and it was unforgettable. The remake? Well, the guns come out, the good guys get a shot at redemption, and we all get to leave the theater without needing years of therapy. It’s safe, it’s sanitized, and it’s utterly boring compared to the gut-punch that was the original.

Look, if you didn’t see the 2022 Danish original, you might walk out of this film thinking it was a pretty good thriller with some solid performances and a tense plot. And in some ways, it is. But if you know what this film could have been, then the remake feels like a disappointment. It’s like going to a five-star restaurant only to realize they serve you a cheeseburger because they don’t think you can handle foie gras. Sure, the cheeseburger’s good, but damn, I wanted something more.

So should you see Speak No Evil (2024)? Sure, why not? Just don’t expect it to mess you up the way the original did. It’s horror-lite, the diet version of a much richer, darker film.