"Speak No Evil" - Shudder Film Review
Speak No Evil begins with a car driving on an isolated road illuminated only by the headlights. Perhaps it’s the anticipation of what’s to come, but your eyes start playing tricks on you. The trees and the shadows of the forest come alive, and it’s easy to believe there’s something hidden just around the bend. Right away, Speak No Evil lets the audience know this is going to be uncomfortable, unnerving, and filled with things that go bump in the night.
Parents Bjørn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) and their daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) are spending part of their summer holiday in Italy. At the villa they’re staying in, they meet a Dutch family, Patrick (Fedja van Huêt), Karin (Karina Smulders), and Abel (Marius Damslev), and immediately hit it off. When the summer ends, Patrick and Karin invite Bjørn, Louise, and Agnes to visit them in the Netherlands. What begins as a fun reconnection turns sour as the Dutch family begins to act strangely.
Speak No Evil chooses not to subtitle the Dutch family for English-speaking viewers. When the Dutch and Danish families speak to each other, they speak in English, as that’s the only language they have in common. English-speaking audiences are exclusively given translations for the Danish family. Just as Bjørn, Louise, and Agnes cannot understand the Dutch family, most English speakers watching will be just as much in the dark when Patrick, Karin, and Abel speak among themselves. It adds to a feeling of otherness that permeates the film. Speak No Evil is by no means an easy watch. It’s viscerally uncomfortable to be so out of the loop, and that’s even before things take a turn for the worse.
While Speak No Evil is about the dangers of trusting strangers and a stark reminder of how powerful the word “no” can be, the film becomes unbelievable after a certain moment of child endangerment. Even someone who is not a parent can recognize that all societal norms surrounding niceness need to be thrown out the window when your child is in this situation. It’s a moment that’s impossible to shake off, but it’s where the film would have logically ended if Bjørn and Louise had an ounce of sense about them.
The film’s final moments are visually harrowing. It’s gnarly, bloody, and traumatic, but it doesn’t make sense. The motive behind Patrick and Karin’s odd characterizations fails to match their devilish scheme. What they claim to desire doesn’t match who the audience has come to understand these people are. Despite the creation of a truly unsettling world, the lack of payoff makes the ending feel flat. The violence that the audience is subjected to watching now feels grotesque and exploitative.
Had the movie not unraveled the way it did, Speak No Evil could have solidified itself as one of the great low-budget horror flicks. The first half still belongs in that category, but the ending needed something more to elevate the themes of parenthood it’s so desperately trying to critique.
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