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"It Leaves an Ick": Speak No Evil's Scoot McNairy Says Film Will Scare One Group in Particular
Get ready for some "stressful fun," says director James Watkins.
Scoot McNairy, one of the stars of the new horror movie Speak No Evil, has a warning for potential moviegoers.
“If you’re a parent, this movie will scare the s--t out of you,” McNairy tells SYFY WIRE during an interview ahead of Speak No Evil’s September 13 premiere.
It’s an understandable warning. The film, a remake of a Danish movie of the same name from two years ago, stars McNairy and Mackenzie Davis as a couple with a young daughter who meet another couple and their son while on vacation. They later decide to take their new friends up on an offer to visit them at their countryside house, only to slowly discover that the couple, played by James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi, are much more sinister than they appear.
Even before Speak No Evil inevitably tips its hand into outright terror, it’s an extremely tense movie because of how McAvoy’s character, a charismatic but unpredictable man named Paddy, weaponizes social norms.
How Speak No Evil Plays on Real-Life Anxieties
James Watkins, who directed the new movie, tells SYFY WIRE that Speak No Evil is about “anxieties we have in everyday life.”
“How do we interact with other people?” Watkins asks. “How do we raise our children? What do we do when people are behaving badly? Do we let them? Are we shackled by our politeness?”
At times in Speak No Evil, Paddy and his wife Ciara parent their son, Ant (Dan Hough), in ways that Ben (McNairy) and Lousie (Davis) wouldn’t parent their daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler). Other times, Paddy and Ciara seemingly overstep their boundaries and attempt to parent Agnes. It leaves Ben and Louise unsure of how to respond, an extremely uncomfortable feeling that parents in the audience likely know all too well.
“One of the things I loved about it was that underlying tension between two parents,” McNairy says. “You can’t really parent a parent parenting, which creates this pool of uncomfortability.”
Speak No Evil is an uncomfortable film, one that draws on mundane but real fears (like your relationship isn’t working) and deep, primal ones (like your child is in danger). And yet it’s also quite funny, full of pressure-relieving laughs, and plenty of opportunities to smile and cringe while yelling, in classic horror movie fashion, “No, don’t do that!” at a character on screen.
“I wanted to make a film that’s stressful fun, I suppose,” Watkins says. “I think humor works, not just as humor, but as a way of scratching away at some of the cringe of the stressors. It's funny watching people struggling. You know, Ricky Gervais has made a career out of it in a brilliant way about social awkwardness.”
Even with those laughs — and a rollicking, adrenaline-pumping climax — Speak No Evil remains a perniciously effective horror movie.
“This movie? Be careful,” McNairy warns. “Because it leaves an ick stuck on you after you leave the film. It does leave you feeling like you want to take a shower.”
Speak No Evil premieres in theaters September 13. Get your tickets now!
