Speak No Evil

Slow, manipulative, lies, provoking, ambivalent, awkward, tough watch, pure evil.

***This movie is based on danish culture, and I can understand why some people wouldn't know whats going on or what the point of the movie is. But I will try to make an effort and explain it in short terms***

First of all the movie takes it's time building up suspension. It knows how to manipulate the audience, and it works. Especially if you are danish. The danish couple in this movie acts like most danes normally would in awkward situations. It makes the movie very realistic. The danes would be polite as long as they only FEEL something is wrong. A bit naive maybe, and I think thats what the director is trying to tell us. The danes tend to feel safe, cuz they live in one of the most safe countries on earth and therefore they normally wouldn't be suspecious or think people would harm them. They would see the misunderstandings as culture differences and try to be polite and get the best out of their stay. They wouldn't see that they were being manipulated.

In the first half of the movie the danes gets the sense that something is wrong with the dutch family, but they won't let it affect the mood. But when they SEE something wrong they begin to speak up. The second half of the movie is where the crazy things begins to happen. It's a tough watch, so consider yourself warned.

This is a peculiarly brutal horror-thriller centered on a Danish family visiting new acquaintances in Holland, who turn out to be more than they can handle. Starting from such a minimalistic and low-key premise, the team builds up its characters through several layers of tension, toward a grand finale, all the more horrifying for being perfectly predictable.

The writing is well-paced, concise and visual, and the characters, their inner life and the tension among them is captured in a few elegant and subdued strokes. The two male leads are particularly impressive, the one providing a great 'on-the-edge' character, the other a particularly subtle rendering of midlife crisis, peppered with masculine insecurities, class issues masquerading as culture shock, and fantasies of authenticity.

The wives are get less air-time but both offer relatable and credible performances. The kids both have thankless roles and the movie might have cured me from ever wanting to start a family.

Finally, the sound is also unusually interesting for a film of this type, for example when setting the mundane hell of adulting, against ominous orchestral music.

This is a very subtle and subdued horror thriller, which has all the qualities of Nordic cinema and few of its defects.

Seen during the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

This probably isn't the best review you'll read as it's been a while since I've posted anything. However, for this film, I'm happy to make the effort.

Words cannot describe how uncomfortable I felt watching the film. The social awkwardness, miscommunication and remote setting make this a very uncomfortable movie to watch. Not to mention the last 30 minutes, where the film turns from a psychological thriller to a twisted horror with horrendous graphic violence (I mean that in the good sense).

I was not yet familiar with Christian Tafdrup's work, but he is definitely putting himself on the map with this film.

Suitable for: People who don't want to sleep at night and have had a lot of fun watching movies like Hereditary and Midsommar.

Not suitable for: People who are going to watch this with their partner. You will get bruises and tears will flow.

PS. I'm from the Netherlands myself, and we're not that bad. As long as you do what we say.

A good story that reminds us all that it's good to be polite and kind to others. BUT don't allow it to blind you from red flags or anything that could be dangerous to you or your loved ones.

Which is fitting for the title "speak no evil", as the family tries it's hardest not to say anything to offend their new friends or speak badly of them.

It's frustrating to watch at times but if you can remind yourself of the Intent of the film and it's message. It becomes less frustrating.

Overall though a good horror movie to watch, as long as you don't mind seeing children getting hurt and pretty damn dark moments.

Coming into Speak No Evil, I was told this was one of the most disturbing movies of all time. It isn't, in my opinion. Maybe I'm desensitized, because while there is a very terrifying and hard to watch sequence in this movie...there's only one, really. On some level, it's my own fault for listening to the hype, and I was somewhat disappointed the movie wasn't more intense.

Also, I can acknowledge that this movie is a, frustrating, experience to say the least. You know when you watch horror movies and scream at the screen for the characters to trust their instincts and LEAVE? Well yeah, this movie will annoy the hell out of you. (Of course, if the characters did the logical thing, the movie wouldn't happen.) I feel like there are cultural differences here too, which explains some of the character's behaviour.

That all being said, this is a good movie. It's extremely tense and uncomfortable, with a lot of the appeal coming from waiting for the shoe to drop.

The film follows a Danish family - Bjorn (Morten Burian) and Louisa (Sidsel Koch) who take up the invitation of a pleasant Dutch family they met on vacation to visit their home in the Dutch countrside. Normal stuff, until the Dutch hosts begin acting somewhat strange and begin testing the Danes' social niceties and tolerance.

As the movie unfolds, it becomes almost unbearable as every cringe inducing moment seems like the one that will bring forth the inevitable horror. The movie does a good job setting up peaks and troughs, and even adding some complexity to the narrative. The men seem to share a bond, Bjorn, somewhat emasculated and timid, embraces the primal spontaneity and energy of his Dutch counter part, Patrick.

And that's what elevates this movie from another paint-by-numbers thriller. The real message of the film, in my opinion, is an indictment of the Danish middle class, so removed from danger and hardship that their human survival instincts seem gone. That the Danes care so much about being polite that this is more important than removing themselves from a dangerous situation.

I think it was deliberate that they meet a Dutch family, people from, as Bjorn says, "a similar culture, more similar to them than the politically correct Swedes." It would've been easy for an exotic foreigner to be the cause of such horror, but I think the film purposefully does this. It's also refreshing to see a film that doesn't treat masculinity as a toxic trait that must be excised. Instead, Speak No Evil puts forth the idea that a man who has lost his masculinity, to the extent that he can barely put up a fight in the face of death, is no man at all.

Speak No Evil is dark, depressing, thought provoking, and not for everyone. But it's a pretty neat little thriller, has some interesting ideas, and is a roller coaster. Check it out.