Horror movies, even really good ones, have a way of turning their audience into backseat survivors: “Get out of the house for once!” we scream at characters who are too stubborn or stupid to recognize the warning signs around them. It can be part of the genre’s shared fun, loudly begging the people on screen to get in touch with their self-preservation instincts.
Viewers are likely to have a few words (or maybe just a groan) for the slowly fleeing characters Do not speak evil. Here, the underdogs – a Danish family spending a nightmare weekend in the Dutch wilds – actually does make a decision to get the hell out of here. Unfortunately, they only make it a few miles down the road before they put the car in reverse, and their escape is cut short when they discover that a beloved toy has been left behind. What’s more infuriating than someone who refuses to leave the house? What would it be like to watch them leave the house, change their minds and return to it?
To be fair, these fatally humble Danes don’t necessarily have reason to suspect that their lives are in danger. As far as they know, the bad situation they have fallen into deserves only discomfort, not fear. And it’s a genius, satirical design Do not speak evil. This is more than good horror. It’s wickedly inspired and brutally effective.
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We meet the eternally accommodating married couple Bjørn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) in Tuscany, where they went on vacation with their young daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg). Here they meet Patrick (Fedja van Huêt) and Karin (Karina Smulders), another couple on vacation with their small child, Abel (Marius Damslev), who doesn’t talk much. Patrik and Karin are disarmingly open. They also have a relationship, passionate and free-spirited, that their new Danish friends might secretly envy. And so when Patrick and Karin invite them to their home in the Dutch countryside the following summer, Bjørn and Louise decide to accept their offer. “I think it might be rude to refuse,” they muses before uttering some famous last words: “What’s the worst that could happen?”
At this point, alarm bells will be ringing in the heads of horror fans, especially given the swelling ominous music that accompanies these seemingly innocuous early scenes. But Do not speak evil it doesn’t immediately go into the pornographic torture scenario that one might expect. What it offers instead is a slow escalation social nightmare: A long weekend with strangers that becomes a backdrop of belittling, belittling, and crossed lines.
Almost from the start, cracks begin to form in the warmth of Patrick and Karin’s welcome, starting with their general refusal to take Louise’s vegetarianism seriously. (She’s actually a fishmonger, Patrick corrects him, before grilling her about the environmental effects of the fishing industry.) From here, the hosts begin to test the limits of their guests’ patience and decency—making them pay a hefty dinner bill, violating their privacy at every turn. age, and even have the insolence of Agnes’s parent on the other side of the table. Their own child, Abel, apparently has an illness that makes it difficult to speak. Patrick and Karin treat him with rudeness bordering on abuse. But where can Bjørn and Louise protest?
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One might think, during each grueling episode, of Ruben Östlund’s expertly calibrated cringe comedies such as Force majeure and Square. Writer-director Christian Tafdrup has a comparable talent for probing the pressure points of class, gender and family discontent. Among the many unspoken tensions underlying the film’s war of wills is a hint of trouble in paradise—a sense that Bjørn may not be entirely satisfied with his life as a husband and father. It could be said that most of what happens in Do not speak evil is, on some level, his fault. Tafdrup pushes the couple’s willingness to endure all manner of disrespect almost to the point of absurdity, without sacrificing believability. Credits to the four leads, who find notes of nuance in this dark comedy of manners. Van Huêt is particularly great as Patrick, turning on a dime from gregarious to menacing.
There could also be something here about the essential differences between the Dutch and the Danes. But Do not speak evil does not require expertise in European cultural customs. Anyone who has ever felt trapped in an awkward social situation, or has been reluctant to voice any objection to being treated badly, will shudder to recognize this. How much are we willing to put up with for fear of conflict or not coming off as rude? That’s the question posed by Patrick and Karin, hosts from hell whose games of social terrorism are actually an indictment of decency. They’re like The Strangers dressed up for dinner and attacking anyone weak enough to let them.
Do not speak evil – official announcement [HD] | Source for shaking
If this all sounds more Off-Broadway than midnight movie, more Edward Albee than Ed Gein, know that Tafdrup’s games of violated etiquette have a big payoff. Final section of Do not speak evil is a real dark night of the soul, painful and suffocatingly tense; it is the stuff of heavy horror, to be watched between tightly clenched fingers. Still, what remains in this harrowing thriller are the calculated, elaborate misses—a symphony of fidgeting that becomes a cautionary tale about the dangers of acquiescence. Keep your mouth shut at your own risk.
Do not speak evil opens in select theaters on September 9th and begins streaming on September 15th on Shudder. For more writing by AA Dowd, visit his Authory page.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn