Universal Pictures

James McAvoy Is Charming and Unhinged in SPEAK NO EVIL’s Unsettling Trailer

Originally posted on Nerdist | By Tai Gooden | Last updated 4/11/24

Would you like a solid piece of life advice? Sure you would. Do not go hang out with people in some random location unless you know them really, really well. If you just met a couple on vacation and they invite you to their not-so-humble abode in the middle of nowhere, think twice before you accept that invitation. This may seem like common sense, but if you look around, you’ll see that common sense is not so common. Speak No Evil unveils the very obvious dangers of not using your common sense in its creepy new trailer.

If this film seems familiar, that’s because it already exists, basically. Speak No Evil is a remake of the (quite excellent) 2022 Danish film of the same name (also known as Gæsterne) where the general plot is very similar. Only this time, James McAvoy is playing an unsettling estate owner whose behavior gets increasingly more disturbing. And, there will probably be some cultural differences considering the couple that accepts the invitation is from America.

As we see in the Speak No Evil trailer, the Daltons (played by Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) connect with Paddy (McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), a British couple, on vacation. They accept an invite to their abode and things get increasingly weird. I certainly won’t tell you what happens in the original Danish film for two reasons. First, I think it is worth watching. And, I get the feeling that this remake will travel down a similar (if not identical) road. There’s one scene with the Dalton daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) and Paddy’s son Ant (Daniel Hough) that really sets things in a dark direction.

Here’s a synopsis of Speak No Evil:

When an American family is invited to spend the weekend at the idyllic country estate of a charming British family they befriended on vacation, what begins as a dream holiday soon warps into a snarled psychological nightmare.

From Blumhouse, the producer of The Black Phone, Get Out and The Invisible Man, comes an intense suspense thriller for our modern age, starring BAFTA award-winner James McAvoy (Split, Glass) in a riveting performance as the charismatic, alpha-male estate owner whose untrammeled hospitality masks an unspeakable darkness.