Why So Blu?

Speak No Evil (Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Review)

2024 brought along a few interesting thrillers.  For me, this is a genre that deserves more time in theaters.  The 80’s and 90’s are rife with them, and depending on your mood there could be a thriller film for anyone who likes the genre.  I was even discussing thrillers with my colleagues on the morning of this writing! These taut films are part of a genre most people seem to generally love. Speak No Evil, a Blumhouse produced remake of the 2022 Danish film of the same name.  Does this iteration stand up to the heralded original? Find out in the review and keep it quiet while you read… or else…

Film:

After befriending a British couple with a mute son, Americans Ben and Louise accept an unusual invitation to bring their daughter for a weekend at an idyllic country estate. Yet when they discover their hosts are hiding sinister motives, Ben and Louise fear their family may be pawns in a disturbing plot. Led by James McAvoy as a charismatic man masking unspeakable darkness, a dream holiday warps into an unnerving nightmare in this shocking thriller.

Ben and Louise are on a vacation to Italy with their daughter Agnes.  The setting is beautiful, but Ben and Louise appear to be bored.  They spend the day with their child who is riddled with anxiety.  She’s soon to be 12 and carries a security stuffy to help her with her mild attacks. Evenings are spent with some boring Europeans that they don’t really like.

When the family is sunning by the pool, they meet Paddy (McAvoy) who is aggressive and boisterous.  They think nothing of him until Paddy shows up the next day with his wife Ciara and their son Ant, riding on a Vespa.  Ben and Louise think this looks fun and when Ben offers to give a ride to Agnes, she excitedly gets on, leaving her support bunny behind.  Ben and Louise find themselves drawn to Paddy and Ciara because of their free spirits.  Dinners get more adventurous, and they begin to bond.  Ant has a small tongue making it hard to talk and he and Agnes become friends. When the family returns home to London, they receive a photo and note from Paddy and Ciara, inviting them to spend a week at their remote farm in the country.

Louise is a little bit apprehensive to join some people for a whole week.  Ben feels that they need more time off from life to relax and get closer.  Against their better judgment, the family load up into their Tesla and drive to the country farm.  Paddy and Ciara are excited to see their new friends.  They make a meal with the centerpiece being a freshly killed Goose.  They goad Louise with a taste, despite knowing she’s a vegetarian. This is the first big compromise for Louise.

As the week moves forward the two couples spend a lot of time drinking and hanging around.  Paddy and Ben get close while Louise keeps her guard up.  A trip to a field near a lake shows Paddy becoming defensive about his love of hunting and his parenting style.  He begins to show an aggression and frustration with Louise for her differences of opinion with him.  Ciara remains quiet and Ant being unable to talk or emote just deals with what comes his way with little to no emotion.

When the family continues to see Paddy’s oddity coming out day by day they decide to leave early.  When Louise finds Agnes in bed with Paddy and Ciara, she is appalled and makes them leave in the middle of the night.  Agnes, forgetting her security bunny, begs them to return.  Paddy guilts them into staying longer and despite protests, join Paddy and his family for lunch.  At this lunch, Paddy gets drunk and has an outburst in reaction to Ant and Agnes performing a dance.  This offends Louise and she demands they leave. As they ready themselves for a departure, Ant reveals some horrifying secrets to Agnes, and then all hell breaks loose.

It’s very hard to give the details of the story of Speak No Evil without spoiling it, but I tried my best above.  For me, Speak No Evil delivers the good with an unsettling, squirmy thriller plot.  We know something isn’t quite right when we meet Paddy and his family.  A little too much affection, a little overly aggressive, a little too touchy about hunting and discipline techniques. Paddy is a little too much, period.  It’s clear that Louise feels this immediately.  She simply follows Ben’s lead as he seems to be needing a friend or an escape, especially dealing with some of the marriage issues the pair have been having.

Ant is a mystery too.  He seems ok but is mute.  He doesn’t have much in the line of emotions, but he enjoys Agnes, and the two form a friendship based on their differences. Ciara is complacent, and often plays along with Paddy even if the situations get weird.  We also get introduced to two strange foreign characters. One, a babysitter, who is a felon, that Ben and Louise leave their child with.  The other is a man who runs the village restaurant that is exorbitantly expensive.  He looks at Ben and Louise with disgust and you wonder if he may be the evil you’re not supposed to speak of.

At the end of the day, Speak No Evil rests of the shoulders of Paddy. He is slightly unhinged from the moment you meet him, and it’s no spoiler or surprise that he factors into the villainy in the film.  It’s the reveal of the motives and the execution of tension that ratchets this film up in quality for me.  There is the complaints in comparison to the 2022 film, which itself is supposedly excellent.  We in America have had a direct remake before.  In 1988, a dutch film called Spoorloos was released.  The story of a man wanting to know what it’s like to murder someone does so in a gruesome fashion, launching a man’s life into hell as he searches for his missing companion.  It’s a devastating thriller with a dark ending.  When the director of Spoorloos decided to bring the film up to date for an American audience, he remade it as The Vanishing with some big stars in the roles and changed the ending for the Americans, so it was a “happy” one.  Fans of the original were furious, and critics weren’t kind.  The movie fizzled in theaters and only gained a small bit of interest on home video.

I look at Speak No Evil and The Vanishing as companion pieces.  Each presents a different, slightly off kilter thriller and makes it less out there than its foreign counterpart, palatable for mainstream audiences. I am the first to admit I am no one to ask about arthouse faire. I barely watch foreign films and some films that take themselves to creative heights or dare to be very different can be lost to me.  Call me uncultured, but sometimes I just like a satisfying “happy” ending.  I also really liked The Vanishing.  I did watch Spoorloos once.  It was sad and depressing and torturous in its execution of the ending.  I liked it and appreciated it, but won’t ever want to watch it again.  The Vanishing on the other hand has a young Sandra Bullock, Kiefer Sutherland as the lead, and Jeff Bridges as one of the most odd villains I’ve seen before, funny accent and all.

So at the end of the day, pick your poison.  Fans of each iteration of Speak No Evil will have their reasons for liking the film of their choosing.  I may like both someday myself, but we shall see.  As for the 2024 Speak No Evil, I believe it to be a creepy, deliberately frustrating, edge of your seat thriller with yet another exceptional performance from the well fit James McAvoy.  As the queer voice of whysoblu.com, I can also say I admired his physique in the film, even if his Paddy creeped me out for the duration of the film. I love a thriller, and for me, Speak No Evil delivers the goods.

Video:

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

HDR: N/A

Layers: BD-50

Clarity/Detail: Speak No Evil says a lot on Blu-ray visually.  The film opens with a stunning location set in Italy, and details and clarity are on display from the first frame.  Each set piece interior or exterior looks fantastic on screen. You can only imagine what the film might’ve looked like on UHD Blu-ray.  Don’t we all wonder that when films get Blu-ray only releases?

Depth:  Foreground and Background shots look wonderful during the film, and practical lensing keeps things in focus with clothing and facial textures looking spot on from the sharp focus.

Color Reproduction: The opening in Italy gives you some eye candy, as do the outdoor shots of the farm on the English countryside.  Reds, blues, oranges, yellows and greens pop! In the darkness, you see other lovely cooler tones, with nothing looking washed out.

Black Levels: Blacks levels work really well for night or dark room scenes. No crush!

Flesh Tones: Flesh tones are spot on and flawless!

Noise/Artifacts: Clean

Audio:

Audio Format(s): English Dolby TrueHD 7.1, French and Spanish Dolby Digital Plus 7.1

Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish

Dynamics: The 7.1 mix for Speak No Evil is nearly immersive with good surround activity and music reproduction. Dialogue is clear and maintains stability throughout.  One wonders if an Atmos mix would further immerse the listeners, but I do think this is an excellent sounding track.

Height: N/A

Low-Frequency Extension: Bass delivers in the climax and with some of the score in the film.  It’s not a bass heavy film but when called upon, bass delivers!

Surround Sound Presentation: Surrounds help bring forth outdoor ambience and help make the farmhouse a little creepier with the sounds of an old home coming through the speakers.

Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is handled perfectly throughout.

Extras:

Extras are short but informative for Speak No Evil, and the commentary is serviceable too.  The film comes home with a slipcover and a digital code for its initial pressing.

Special Features:

 

• Nuclear Families: Director and stars discuss Speak No Evil. Spoilers abound in this one so watch the movie first!
• A Horrifying Crescendo: All about the awkwardness that permeates the film with good reason as the film turns to thriller and horror elements later in the runtime.
• The Farmhouse of Horrors: All about the locations of the film – The Farmhouse, obviously.
• Feature Commentary with Writer and Director James Watkins

Summary:

Speak No Evil is a creepy fun jaunt into the awkwardness of courtesy.  It’s also a visceral experience as it gets scarier and more uncomfortable. James McAvoy continues to be a forceful presence in movies like this, and the rest of the cast seems to be game to go on through the craziness. The action gets amped up at the end and it’s satisfying ending may not please everyone, but it worked great for me.  One does with that Universal gave this film a 4K release, but the Blu-ray is great for now, and hopefully we will see a 4K release some time in the future so all us fans can double-dip!

Order your copy of Speak No Evil HERE