It’s no secret that when James Watkins’ new take on Speak No Evil was first announced, just a year on from the Danish original’s release, people had thoughts. Horror fans flocked to social media to wonder aloud as to the benefits of a Hollywood version, as they drew attention to the fact that much of Christian Tafrdup’s film is in English anyway.
James McAvoy, however, has “never seen the problem” with remaking certain movies, especially when it could lead audiences back to the titles in which they’re based.
“When I did Macbeth, I didn’t remake Macbeth,” the actor, who plays antagonist Paddy Feld in the new movie, tells GamesRadar+ and Inside Total Film. “Yeah, it had been done a gazillion, thousand million times before but great stories can be told again and again, especially when audiences haven’t seen them the first time around. Did the larger film-going community go and see the original film? No. Are they going to go and see the original film? Maybe now they will, if they’ve seen this one and they go, ‘I’d love to see that other version.’ So I think there’s no problem, and I’ve never seen the problem.”
Written and directed by Watkins, whose previous works include Eden Lake and The Woman in Black, Speak No Evil centers on Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis), an American couple who have grown distant since uprooting their life to London. While holidaying in Italy, the pair and their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) strike up a fast friendship with a gregarious Englishman named Patrick (McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and mute son Ant (Dan Gough).
Back in the city, they receive an invitation from Paddy and his family to come visit their remote farm in the West Country for a weekend, which they accept after a little deliberation. Soon after they arrive, though, they realize that their new hosts aren’t quite as friendly as they first appeared…
“There’s no point remaking a movie unless you bring something a little bit different to it. Because Christian’s film is, you know, not very old, and it exists and it’s really good. If you want to see that film, you can. I saw his film, I thought it was fantastic, and I thought, ‘Okay, I can. I can go somewhere slightly different,'” Watkins says in a follow-up chat. “There’s a lot of noise, and you can get caught up in the noise. You always can get defensive, but at the same time, you have to remind yourself that these people haven’t seen my film.
“So it’s like, ‘You know what, go and watch the film and then comment, and if you hate it, that’s fine. That’s your right.’ Everybody has a right not to like stuff, particularly if you pay your money. But when it’s just an abstract thought? It’s nonsense. But hey, listen, it’s easy to be cynical and honestly, I do it. ‘They’re remaking that? Oh…’ I do it. So I don’t know, I just thought it was a brilliant story. This is a different interpretation of a brilliant story. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. It doesn’t deny the existence of Christian’s movie, which is brilliant.”
Spoiler-heavy specifics aside, it probably won’t come as a shock to those who have seen Tafdrup’s bone-chilling 2022 film to learn that Watkins’ Speak No Evil has a wildly different ending. That’s not the only way in which it shakes things up, though. McAvoy’s Paddy is much warmer, volatile, and openly emotional than Fedja van Huêt’s harder-to-read Patrick, for starters. It delves into Paddy and his wife’s pasts a lot more and it’s darkly funny in places, too, which isn’t the way genre fans would describe its predecessor.
“They are different. They do say different things, and I’m not making this film for the people who saw the first one,” McAvoy continues. “We were making this film for people who never saw the first one. So really, I don’t know. I don’t know if there is a problem there for me, really.”
Speak No Evil releases on September 12. For more, check out our list of the best horror movies of all time, or our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
Listen out for more of our chat with McAvoy on an upcoming episode of the Inside Total Film podcast, which is available on Apple, Audioboom, Spotify, and more.
