| Universal Pictures | Release Date: September 13, 2024 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
28
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
SlashfilmSep 10, 2024
Screen RantSep 13, 2024
Horror movies often have to rely on the stupidity of their characters for the story to work: victims in waiting either make terrible decisions in high-pressure situations or simply lack any survival instincts until the bodies start to rise up. Speak No Evil plays with the audience by subverting those expectations very precisely, posing the question of when exactly you would have walked away from all the red flags.
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NMESep 10, 2024
All the cast play their parts, but an off-the-leash McAvoy is a joy to behold, channeling the same twisted energy he mined for his addict-cop in Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth. Touching on issues of class and the rich-poor divide, the result is a top-notch British thriller that’ll scare the bejesus out of you.
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The IndependentSep 10, 2024
While this might be a flashy, American production (courtesy of Blumhouse, behind the Insidious movies and Get Out), it’s also the distinctly observational work of a British writer-director. And then there’s McAvoy, delivering one of the most impressively repugnant performances of the year.
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RogerEbert.comSep 13, 2024
Speak No Evil is a throwback to the 1980s-’90s era of medium-budget thrillers like “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle,” “Unlawful Entry,” and “Fatal Attraction,” in which representatives of supposedly respectable bourgeoisie society were menaced by dangerous outsiders who smelled weakness in them and/or wanted to punish them for their sins, perceived or real.
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Sep 12, 2024
Remakes are odious, but Speak No Evil, while thoroughly unneeded and unasked for, is an Americanized remake of a 2022 thriller from Denmark that services its original material well, thanks mostly to a sprawling, contradictory and totally galvanizing centerpiece performance by James McAvoy.
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Sep 12, 2024
Sleek and ever more unsettling, Speak No Evil is closely based on a far colder, downright nasty 2022 movie of the same title from the Danish director Christian Tafdrup. For the most part, Watkins adheres to the original’s overall design and trajectory while adding some new details and scenes; he also pads the running time an unnecessary 15 or so minutes.
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Sep 12, 2024
That’s why we watch films like this, for that sensation of safely squirming from our comfortable seats — and for performances like McAvoy’s. With a smile like a demon elf — his teeth practically seem to be vibrating — and eyes that seem to pierce the house’s malevolent darkness, he’s wickedness personified. It’s a huge, pitched-to-the-balconies performance, and shivery fun to watch.
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Sep 11, 2024
Director James Watkins and especially his excellent troupe of actors, adult and children alike, do a nice job of building the tension, slowly but surely. Until all bloody hell breaks loose, of course. And then, in its third act, “Speak No Evil” becomes an entertaining but routine horror flick, with predictable results.
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Sep 13, 2024
This remake of the 2022 Danish-language chiller maintains much of what made the original so effective but, in swapping that film’s shocking ending for a more audience-friendly take, loses some of its bite. Nevertheless, a striking performance from James McAvoy keeps things interesting.
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Sep 10, 2024
The film’s slow-burn pace is an asset, not a flaw. Speak No Evil works best when it focuses on the Americans’ escalating fears, and collapses near the end when the psychological horror story turns into a predictable potboiler. But for a good three-quarters of the way, this Blumhouse production is an entertainingly elevated genre piece.
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ColliderSep 10, 2024
If you want to give the 2024 film as fair a shot as possible, go in without seeing the original. However, if you only want to devote your time to seeing one version of this story, it should be the original Speak No Evil. It's truly one of the darkest, meanest, and most devastating horror films out there
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IndieWireSep 10, 2024
This version of Speak No Evil, despite an effectively creepy performance from James McAvoy, grinds the unsettling contours of the original into gory, “Straw Dogs”-lite, home-invasion comeuppance pulp in a last act that’s exactly the sort of dragged-out predictable material Tafdrup sought to avoid.
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Sep 10, 2024
See No Evil directed by James Watkins (“The Woman in Black”), is not that interesting. Nor is it much of a horror movie or psychological thriller, despite carrying the Blumhouse imprimatur. For more than half of its nearly two-hour length, it plays more like the James McAvoy variety hour — which can be highly enjoyable if you do not mind one actor being the entire show.
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