‘Speak No Evil’ Review: James McAvoy Is a Hoot as a Vacation Friend From Hell in a Horror-Comedy That Overplays Its Slow Burn
variety.comJ. Kim Murphy It snuck up on us, but the American remake of a foreign film hardly seems like the totem to failed imagination that it once did.
Being generous, it’s practically becoming a lost art in the age of franchise maintenance. How can an overseas breakthrough be rejiggered into a one-off multiplex programmer?
Blumhouse’s latest genre play “Speak No Evil” — which rips its title, premise and even entire gags from Christian Taldrip’s totally-f’ed-up festival standout from two years ago — is a reminder that the answer is usually pretty easy: End it as a crowd-pleaser, in this case with James McAvoy hulking out after he’s gleefully played with his food for 80 minutes.
As with the original film, writer-director James Watkins‘ remake studies a couple that stretches their belief in the kindness of strangers to absurd proportions.
Read more on variety.com
