‘Speak No Evil’ Review: A Queasily Effective Danish Horror Film on the Discomfort of Strangers

variety.com:

Dennis Harvey Film CriticThe fear of seemingly harmless strangers that’s heightened during our era of online “relationships” (not to mention COVID) is cannily exploited in actor-turned-writer-director Christian Tafdrup’s “Speak No Evil.” Building on the thorny couple dynamics of his prior features “Parents” and “A Horrible Woman,” this excruciatingly slow-burn thriller has a young Danish family befriended on holiday by a Dutch clan, only to belatedly realize these new BFFs might be hazardous to their health.Tafdrup’s squirm-inducing tale is premiering in Sundance’s Midnight section, and should find ready berth among genre fans, with strong potential for remake bids. (Distribution rights have already been secured by horror streaming service Shudder.) At the same time, its all-too-palpable cruelty will repel some viewers, in the same way such prior atypical horrors as the original “Wolf Creek” and both editions of “Funny Games” did.

A grim final destination is all the more upsetting because the over-the-top melodrama of Sune Kolst’s orchestral score, applied straightaway to a simple opening shot of a car driving down a road at night, suggests we’re in store for an outlandish black comedy. (In press materials the director does describe it as a “satirical horror movie,” something spectators may well argue with.) That expectation seems reasonable for quite a while, as Danes Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) and Bjorn (Morten Burian) meet the Dutch pair Patrick (Fedja van Huet) and Karin (Karina Smulders) at a Tuscan resort villa.

The couples are about the same age, as are their respective children, Agnes (Liva Forsberg) and the rather withdrawn Abel (Marius Damslev).