‘Speak No Evil’ and the Top Five “Get Me the F--- Out of Here” Movies, With James McAvoy!

Before the moviefall-release housekeeping

Juror #2 2024

Eastwood's latest, dated for a November 1 limited release closing the AFI festival. Sean pegs it between 'Cry Macho' and 'Richard Jewell,' and wonders whether it platforms wider for election week.

A24 acquired Brady Corbet's VistaVision epic, prompting a running gag about hauling 70mm canisters cinema to cinema. Sean is in; Chris turned off the 45-minute Corbet explainer and won't apologize until he sees the film.

‘Speak No Evil’the Watkins remake vs. the Danish original

Speak No Evil 2024

A vacationing American couple (Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis) accept a weekend invitation from a boisterous English pair (James McAvoy, Aisling Franciosi) and can't find a polite way out. The group agrees the film is more thriller than horror and best as a comedy of manners about toxic masculinity (McAvoy huge and charismatic) before it turns into a cat-and-mouse chase and a survivable ending.

Speak No Evil (2022)

Christian Tafdrup's bleak Danish source film, which Sean has described on-air for years: a nihilist indictment of bourgeois complacency ending in the notorious 'because you let me.' The remake keeps many beats, then softens the third act for an American audience.

The Top Five “Get Me the F--- Out of Here” Movies three separate ballots: Sean, Amanda, Chris

Picked by Sean

The Mist 2007

No. 1: nature gone feral outside, strangers packed into a general store inside, both halves of his nightmare at once.

Picked by Sean

Green Room 2015

No. 2: Saulnier's punk band trapped in a Nazi bar, viscerally upsetting, still his favorite of the director's films.

Picked by Sean

Locke 2013

No. 3: Tom Hardy alone in a car as his life comes apart over the phone, a pure work-anxiety nightmare.

Picked by Sean

The Invitation 2015

No. 4: Kusama's Hollywood Hills dinner party you can't leave; the tonal cousin to 'Speak No Evil.'

Picked by Sean

The Truman Show 1998

No. 5: Weir's version of having it all and finding it fake: the one Sean figures he already lives in.

Picked by Amanda

Get Out 2017

No. 1: no one else put it on the list, and the title says it all.

Picked by Amanda

Midsommar 2019

No. 2: the European-vacation trap, guest of a guest, no way out, and a dopey boyfriend who's no help.

Picked by Amanda

The Stepford Wives 1975

No. 3: the men turned the women into robots. She would like it on 4K UHD, please.

Picked by Amanda

Bridesmaids 2011

No. 4: pure social dread, the dress fitting, the flight, a tragedy in Apatovian clothing.

Picked by Amanda

Picnic at Hanging Rock 1975

No. 5: Weir again: a creepy boarding school and a natural wonder that explains nothing.

Picked by Chris

Open Water 2: Adrift 2006

No. 1: everyone jumps off the yacht and nobody lowered the ladder; the baby is still aboard.

Picked by Chris

The Blair Witch Project 1999

No. 2: his phobia of getting lost in the woods, plus a theatrical experience he calls religious.

Picked by Chris

The Hurt Locker 2008

No. 3: he's clumsy, so cutting the red wire in a bulky bomb suit is a hard no.

Picked by Chris

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974

No. 4: the hitchhiker climbs into the van and put him off hitchhikers for life.

Picked by Chris

Ready or Not 2019

No. 5: hunted on her wedding night, survival hinging on games he'd never learn the rules to.

In conversation

James McAvoy & James Watkins on

Speak No Evil 2024

Watkins on relocating the Danish film to the UK and walking the line between comedy of manners and horror; McAvoy on finding Paddy's ego and menace within himself, and on getting the biggest and strongest he'd ever been after his second child, a physique that happened to fit the part.