Synopsis
A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.
Speak No Evil
2022 ‘Gæsterne’ Directed by Christian Tafdrup
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it's been a little more than 2 years since becoming a parent quickly, completely, and irrevocably rewired how my brain perceives movies (in addition to just about everything else). this might be the first new release i've seen since then that features a moment i couldn't bear to watch because of that. you'll know it when you see it. but also the movie is really funny at times, in a hardcore discomfort porn sort of way! anyway, this is an endorsement.
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The first half of SPEAK NO EVIL is probably the funniest movie I’ve seen all year, while the second half, in terms of tone and mood, is probably the most disturbing. Couldn’t breathe as a family’s politeness is flexed into their demise.
Seen at Chicago Critics Film Festival -
Sundance 2022 Film #4
Christian Tafdrup, the director: “yeah, I don’t really like horror. This is my first time doing a horror movie. I wanted to make a movie that would make my audience completely uncomfortable and hate me”
Me: “okay, yeah right chump. Let’s watch this halfed-ass shit show.”
*watches the entire movie*
Me: “PLEASE STOP. STOPPPP. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP NOW!? IT’S ALMOST 4AM, AND I CANT STOP SHAKING. SEND HELPPPPP”
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takes way too fucking long to shift things into gear. i normally love horror movies like this, that tease out what’s going on and keep shit nice and vague, but i really think this one overstays it’s welcome. by the end it’s like, who cares.
i’m genuinely going girl joker from sundance this year. if the next movie i watch isn’t good who knows what i’m capable of.
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Ohhhh so that’s why it’s called that!
Once it dawned on me what was happening I said “oh this rocks” out loud. Little did I know rocks would come into play! This will surely get an American remake, right? Hope whoever buys this lets it speak for itself.
So fucking good. Dark!!! Brutal!!!! Super tense!!!!
edit: in the 20 minutes since I posted this Shudder bought it. hell yeah. glad folks will see it
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Speak No Evil is so effectively scary. I am genuinely in tears haha lol :)))))
By the 37 minute mark, I was so uncomfortable I wanted to turn Speak No Evil off. By the hour ten mark, I was frozen with horror. By the end, I was completely awestruck by just how fucked up this is.
I’m so scared!!! I don’t know what to say!! I watch a rather large amount of horror and it is such a rarity for me to be left so scared. This is very well done in the worst way. Everything about it was just so gut-wrenchingly terrible. HOLY SHIT!!!!
I am very, very glad I watched this early in the morning so I have time to try and purge it from my brain.
SIFF 2022 Watch #7
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SUNDANCE 2022
In directing his third feature, Christian Tafdrop aimed to make an "artistic horror" film in the vein of Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier per the Sundance Q&A.
The film is about a Danish family who decides to meet up with a Dutch family after they get on remarkably well together on vacation. The Dutch family soon puts the Danish family ill at ease. Some scenarios are even potentially fatal before they've decided they've had enough.
The story was set up well and it definitely became unnerving. However, I guess I like my horror films playful. This was just plain ol' disturbing and the ending left things so irredeemable.
Vegan alert:
-Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) eats fish but… -
While I felt the actions of the characters passed believability at a certain point, I could not look away from SPEAK NO EVIL. An uncomfortable dark comedy of manners that spirals into a cruel & barbaric nightmare. Left me feeling queasy & angry beyond belief at the end and I get that’s the point, so…job well done I guess?
Sundance #29
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I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie work so hard to be hateable. It tricks us for feeling moments of hope, mocks us for yelling at the screen, and punishes us for sticking around long enough to learn how it all burns down. A significant departure from genre standards that refuses to be explicit and titillating in its horror, but instead chooses to explore slow-burn emotional harm over physical harm…that is, until its shocking, messed up ending. FUNNY GAMES is an easy comparison but it’s not exactly accurate. This is reverse FUNNY GAMES with a series of red flags the characters not only accommodate, but embrace again and again in the hope of being civilized and polite. In Haneke’s…
