Speak No Evil Movie Review: The horror-Thriller genre is so vast that you can incorporate anything in it and a lot of new experiments have been done and continue to be so that surprise the viewers with its originality and complexity if you add a psychological element to it. A recent addition to that stack of films is director Christian Tafdrup’s “Speak No Evil” or “Gæsterne”.
The story is about a Danish Family of 3 who meets a Dutch Family while on vacation in Tuscany, Italy who instantly hit it off and the Dutch Family invites them over to spend a week in their countryside which the latter accepts. What is supposed to be a fun weekend turns into a lot of discomfort for the Danish family and what slowly seems like unpleasantness becomes far more sinister.
The film is a slow burn with hints along the way that the Danish Family does notice but lets them slip, all in the favour of having a nice weekend with another family, and who doesn’t have faults, right? Well, wrong! The unpleasantness keeps increasing to a point where the Father of the Danish Family who knows what they are capable of, is helpless against what’s about to come.
Strong Points
The cast is phenomenal in portraying a Danish Family of 3 who is close but at the same time does not like their life in the city and needs company whom they actually like. The Dutch Family is believable in every sense because they’re two-faced people and they’ve done it beautifully.
Cinematography
The film has an eerie feel about it and given, that we’re aware of the genre we can expect it to be but how it is shot is visually appealing and within a short runtime of 90 minutes, you’ll see a lot great visuals but not with the setting you’d want them to see.
Screenplay
The director has done a beautiful job in portraying a screenplay that is easy to understand that also hints to you along the way about what you’re about to witness in the end.
Of course, the film is a bit plain in the first half if you’re expecting thrills from this movie but it catches up real fast in the second half, and well, towards the end you’re just filled with the feeling of sadness and disgust.
Weak Points
Does not give you closure
For a film that is basing itself on a Dutch Family that is doing horrible things to the Danish Couple and a lot before, you’d want the viewers to know the motive for doing it which is not explained in the film which can leave the viewers a bit confused
Rating: 3.5/5
This film is undoubtedly creepy, dark, and gory towards the end and it peaks at the end with something that will make your eyes widen which is what you will not expect.
It is definitely a bit predictable at first but later on, it becomes just pure sinister. This is not for normal viewers, if you’re okay with gore, misery po*rn then only watch this.