When Christian and Mads Tafdrup's Danish horror Gæsterne — aka Speak No Evil — landed on Shudder back in 2022, it left even the hardiest of genre lovers, well, speechless honestly. Amongst those beguiled by the duo's darker than dark tale about a Danish family whose charming Dutch hosts for a weekend getaway aren't quite all they seem was Blumhouse head honcho Jason Blum, who quickly snapped up the rights to an English-language remake. Relocated to the UK, written and helmed by Eden Lake's James Watkins, and starring Mackenzie Davis (Station Eleven) and Scoot McNairy (A Quiet Place Part II) as an American couple invited to Brits James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi's (Game Of Thrones) idyllic country estate, the Speak No Evil remake already looks set to get tongues wagging once again. Just check out the new trailer for the holidaying horror below:
Whether you've seen Gæsterne or not, it's pretty clear from the get-go here that there's something not quite right about Paddy (McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Franciosi), and their suspiciously mute son Ant (Daniel Hough). The trailer's cold open on Davis' Louise Dalton frantically trying to shepherd her brood out of their American hosts' West Country home offers a flash-forward to the ultimate holiday from hell. But it's the number of rapidly escalating micro-aggressions the Daltons face from Paddy and Ciara — from uneasy dinner table etiquette lessons to unexpected cold water therapy sessions and a definitely-not-sinister insistence upon their staying put — after their pally first meeting that really gets under the skin. And, on present evidence, Watkins seems to have done a solid job of adeptly translating the Scandinavian culture clashes presented by the original into a more transatlantic flavoured cautionary tale about the perils of over-politeness. And by the time we see the British hosts' furtive kid Ant rasping from a tongueless mouth as McAvoy brandishes power tools in a distinctly un-Nick Knowlesian way during the trailer's somewhat spoilery climax, suffice it to say we're pretty sure the TripAdvisor review's not looking glowing from the Daltons.
We can look forward to seeing whether Speak No Evil is the next big horror conversation starter or whether it'll get the silent treatment from genre lovers when the Blumhouse chiller arrives in cinemas on 13 September.