Speak No Evil review – James McAvoy gives roaring life to red-blooded holiday horror

Tolstoy famously suggested in barnstorming infidelity classic Anna Karenina that all happy families are alike, while the unhappy ones are unhappy in their own way – but here comes Speak No Evil to test the theory. Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis play the Daltons, Ben and Louise, an upmarket American couple living in London; they are holidaying in Italy with their sweet but highly strung daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) while trying to work out some common or garden relationship issues.

During their vacation, they are intrigued and charmed by Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), a more carefree, devil-may-care pair, who seem enviably capable when it comes to the fine art of seizing the day and enjoying life’s lustier side. That is despite handling the challenges of having a melancholy young son with a disability affecting his speech (an excellent and affecting turn from Dan Hough). We sense that this can’t be going anywhere good, but for the Daltons the spontaneous invitation to have a holiday at Paddy and Ciara’s West Country pile is humming with the promise of wholesome country living and a red-blooded, full-bodied way of life that they can’t seem to tap into by themselves.

The thing is: they don’t know they’re in a horror movie. In fact, they seem to think they are in a middlebrow European art film where the worst that can happen to you is some complicated emotional fallout off the back of some ill-advised wife-swapping. This is a new version of a Danish film from 2022, and admirers of the original could warn them that in fact they are stumbling into one of the nastier horror conceits of recent times – though being an American remake, the film retains the shocking central concept while dialling down the nihilism a couple of notches and throwing in a little more overt social comment for good measure.

Related: Uglies review – Netflix’s drab and dated YA dystopian mess is not pretty

McAvoy is the most compelling reason to see this one. The original may be darker, but it didn’t have McAvoy. He’s able to project the kind of careless bonhomie that initially seems to indicate fundamental decency lying beneath the edgy jokes – but by the time Ben and Louise start to realise that he is also missing a few fundamental components of humanity they are in too deep. In fact McAvoy’s performance is a neat nod to everything you’ve ever heard about the geniality and easy charm of Ted Bundy and his ilk; it’s true that manners don’t cost anything, but they also guarantee nothing.

• Speak No Evil is released on 12 September in Australia, and on 13 September in the US and UK.