James Watkins’ “Speak No Evil” is a 2024 psychological horror film based on the 2022 Danish film of the same name.

Starring James McAvoy as Paddy, the film follows the Dalton family as they befriend and room with Paddy and his family. The Daltons are your average nuclear family and at first, Paddy’s family seems to be as well, but it quickly becomes apparent that something more sinister hides behind their smiles.

Paddy’s Italian countryside farmhouse serves as the setting for the majority of the film. Although the farmhouse is initially beautiful and inviting, it soon turns into an eerie reminder that the family the Daltons are stuck with isn’t normal. The film’s lighting plays a very important role. Warm tones are used to signify both intimacy and danger depending on the context of the scene, and this works well to show how easily these lines can be blurred.

McAvoy delivers a fantastic performance throughout, switching between an inviting friend and an animalistic serial killer. He drives the majority of the plot with his acting, and it elevates the film beyond the standards for the genre. McAvoy has played a psychopath in the past in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split,” but this performance stands out because his character is fully aware of his own horror.

Paddy uses his psychopathic tendencies as a tool for domination both physically and mentally. This makes the horror of the film feel real, as he isn’t just a mindless killer but a man doing whatever he wants because he knows no one can stop him.

Scoot McNairy also delivers a great performance as the patriarch of the Dalton family, Ben. He takes on a mostly passive role throughout the film whether to Paddy or to Mackenzie Davis’ Louise Dalton, but this lack of dominance plays well to the other characters’ screen presence.

Ben’s sexual frustration is a surprisingly prevalent plot point. This is a covertly sexual film, as a lot of the horror and suspense on-screen stems from the characters’ sexual frustration. Neither marriage central to this film is a healthy one. On one side you have a couple that’s hesitant to even touch each other and on the other, you have one that is dangerously intimate.

Interestingly, Paddy and Ben have the most prominent relationship on-screen. Nothing outright intimate takes place between them, but Ben is drawn towards Paddy in a way that seems abnormal for someone he met days ago. The characters’ masculinity plays an important role in this relationship, as Paddy seems to be the “alpha male” that Ben wishes he was. Both McNairy and McAvoy perform this well and their complex relationship becomes one of the most intriguing parts of the film.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film’s performances do not live up to McAvoy and McNairy’s. No one is particularly bad but no one stands out either. The two child performances from Alix West Lefler and Dan Hough do deserve some praise. While neither is outstanding in their roles, they still deliver competent performances and never run into the problem of becoming the annoying child tacked onto the film for suspense.

The actors can’t be blamed too much for this film’s problem as many aspects of the plot seem illogical and rushed. The Daltons seem strangely incoherent in multiple scenes where they are oblivious to the obvious horror film they’re stuck in. Some things may have been lost in this film’s translation from Danish into English. European sensibilities are very different from American ones so the characters’ actions may seem more plausible if they had different nationalities, but as the film stands, the Daltons do not feel like real people.

Despite its shortcomings, “Speak No Evil” delivers an intense and impactful experience. It is effectively unsettling and you’re unlikely to look away even when it starts to drag.

Rating: 3/5