Back in January, we shared a trailer for director Christian Tafdrup’s psychological horror film Speak No Evil, which was about to screen at the Sundance Film Festival at that time. Now it has been announced that Speak No Evil will be receiving a limited theatrical release on September 9th, then will be reaching the Shudder streaming service just six days later, on September 15th. With those dates coming up fast, a new trailer has arrived online and can be seen in the embed above.
Written by Tafdrup and his brother Mads Tafdrup (A Horrible Woman), Speak No Evil, which is a Danish production, centers on
on two families – one Danish, one Dutch – who meet while on holiday in Tuscany. When the free-spirited Dutch family extends an invitation to the more conservative Danish for a holiday weekend at their countryside home, the lure of a fun, quick getaway is too delightful to resist. But the Dutch hospitality quickly turns sour for the Danes as they find themselves increasingly caught in a web of their own politeness in the face of eccentric – and sinister – behavior.
Speaking with Variety, Christian Tafdrup described Speak No Evil – which marks his horror genre debut – as a “satirical horror movie”:
Satirical, because it revolves around ordinary people’s absurdly recognizable ways of behaving. A horror movie, because the film is dark, evil and willingly foul. I hope it will become both funny and terrifying. Among modern Western people I think there’s a tendency to make decisions based on a cultural dictation about how we should behave, rather than from our own natural judgment. You don’t want to be less than what you’re mandated, and your self-perception weighs heavier than the truth about who you really are. That is, a genuine human being, for better or for worse. We disguise ourselves, while we long to be authentic.”
Speak No Evil stars Morten Burian, Sidsel Siem Koch, Karina Smulders, and Fedja van Huêt. The film was produced by Profile Pictures’ Jacob Jarek, alongside OAK Motion Pictures in the Netherlands, with support from the Danish Film Institute, FilmFyn, and the Netherlands Film Production Incentive, with co-financing from DR and Nordisk Film Distribution.
I have been interested in watching Speak No Evil since that first trailer was released, so I’m glad to hear a wider audience will be having the chance to see the movie next month.
Will you be watching Speak No Evil in September? Let us know by leaving a comment below.