Warning! This article contains major spoilers for Speak No Evil (obviously). If you've yet to see the film, or the 2022 original, and don't want to know anything that happens, turn back now!
Christian Tafdrup's chilling horror Speak No Evil is a fantastic film in its own right, but there's no denying that it was its bleak, brutal conclusion that cemented it as a stone-cold classic. James Watkins' reboot, which switches the Netherlands for the West Country, wraps things up differently – but the writer/director is adamant that it's still far from a Hollywood happy ending.
"They'd been through the wringer. I made this film a long time ago, Eden Lake, which has a very dark ending, very similar in many ways to Christian's movie, and I just didn't really want to do that again," Watkins tells 12DOVE. "I didn't want to rub the audience's face in it again, and I didn't feel like it'd be honest. [I just went by] where the story took me and where the themes and the characters took me."
In the 2022 original, things don't end well for Bjørn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) after they fail to escape the increasingly violent Patrick and Karin. Having discovered that their hosts have been befriending couples around the world, inviting them to their home, killing them, and then stealing their children for years, the protagonists flee in the middle of the night with their daughter Agnes. Their car breaks down, though, and Patrick and his pal Muhajid intercept the frightened family. Patrick beats Bjørn, as Karin cuts out Agnes tongue. Later, Muhajid leaves with the girl as her parents – almost catatonic with shock, at this point – are taken to an abandoned quarry, where they are forced to undress before being stoned to death.
In the new movie, it's Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara's "son" Ant (Dan Hough) who alerts Agnes to the truth, prompting Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis) to try and leave for a second time. In an attempt to rescue Ant, they ask him to run on ahead and open the farm's gate for them, but a suspicious Paddy assures them there's no need: he's got a remote. As they drive off slowly, they see Paddy push Ant, who can't swim, into a pond outside the house, which leads to Ben stopping the car and wading in to save the boy. With that, Paddy and Ciara manage to subdue Ben, Louise, and Agnes, and take them to the former's workshop.
Fortunately, before things take a real bad turn, the Daltons briefly manage to overpower the Felds, and they make a run for it, locking Ciara and Paddy in the workshop. Then, they hide out in the main house, barricading the windows and doors, as the movie deftly shifts into more of a home invasion thriller.
Soon, the Felds' friend Mike shows up, and makes his way inside, too, causing Ben and Louise to get inventive with their hiding places. Before long, Paddy and Ciara break free, and the latter weasels her way into the house with a shotgun as a raging Paddy paces the perimeter outside and aggressively pounds on the windows and walls.
Eventually, he forces his way in, too, but Louise pops out on him in the bathroom and douses him with some sort of corrosive cleaning fluid. Out of action, Paddy insists Ciara finishes the job, which leads to her chasing Ben, Louise, Agnes, and Ant onto the roof. After a bit of a kerfuffle, Ciara falls, fatally hitting her head.
Ben volunteers to jump down and prop the ladder up against the house so the others can climb down safely. But just as the quartet think they're getting away, Paddy shows up, and sees Ciara's dead body. Fuming, he lunges at the family, but they manage to sedate him using the numbing agent Agnes hid in her pocket back in the workshop. After Paddy stumbles to the ground, Ant climbs on top of him and shrieks as he crushes the former's head with a large rock. The film cuts to black on a shot of young Ant's face in the back of Ben and Louise's car, as tears start streaming down his expressionless face.
"I felt like, 'Well, actually, there's a dramatic resolution here.' Sure, they get away but it's not like they're not suddenly all at the Christmas table, pulling crackers and eating turkey and smiling and joking, right?" explains Watkins. "I didn't want it to be glib. You know, if they'd have driven away, and I don't know, 'Eternal Flame' had been playing on the radio, and they'd all been laughing? Yeah, that would be stupid.
"I know people that have different readings on it; it's very deliberate. Paddy "loses", so to speak, but at the same time, is Ant taking on the mantle? What he's just done is [going to] remain. Hopefully in the final shot, you see it's not a wholly happy ending. It's not a Hollywood ending in that regard," says Watkins. "Ant, his tears at the end, sure, there might be an element of release, but it's kind of tragic, you know?
"You're not looking at this boy and going, 'It's fucking great. He's got away. His life's gonna be sweet and rosy.' You're looking at trauma that's gonna be intergenerational. I mean, yeah for Paddy and Ciara, it doesn't end well for them, but I'm not sure it does for anyone. Everyone comes out scarred."
For McAvoy, the new movie's alternate ending was crucial to his signing onto the project, even though he didn't technically know it at the time. "I think that the film ending differently was not something I was aware of because I'd never seen the original, and I didn't watch it until the day after we finished," he recalls. "But this ending felt like the right one for our film. I feel that Paddy's rhetoric and doctrine is so toxic and so abusive and of the worst possible kind that the film has to judge him; otherwise, the film validates him. And I wouldn't want to be in a film that validates them."
Speak No Evil is in theaters now. 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.
