10 Horror Remakes Everyone Expected To Suck (But Didn't)
2. Speak No Evil
When savage Danish horror Speak No Evil premiered at Sundance in 2022, critics immediately began counting down the time before this deliciously premised chamber piece would get an inevitable English-language remake.
And indeed, many horror fans groaned when it was confirmed the very next year that Blumhouse were developing the remake, no matter that it touted a talented cast led by James McAvoy and Mackenzie Davis.
While the recent Speak No Evil remake undeniably planes away the sharper edges of its more vicious original - particularly in its more crowd-pleasing third act - it still captures the awkward tension of its inspiration, and benefits massively from James McAvoy's swinging-for-the-fences performance as the central villain.
This is a remake that does the rarest of things - it "sanitises" the decidedly meaner source material, albeit in a manner entertaining enough to inexplicably get away with it.
It doesn't replace the original but serves as a rock solid companion piece, which is pretty much a best case scenario for a rushed-into-production remake few fans of the original were asking for.
However Christian Tafdrup, who directed the original, didn't have much kind to say about the remake after watching it.