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The 2024 psychological horror thriller Speak No Evil takes a deep look into the terrifying consequences of people-pleasing. The film stars James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Aisling Franciosi, and Alix West Lefler, and is directed by James Watkins and produced by Blumhouse Productions.
Speak No Evil is based on the 2022 Danish-Dutch film of the same name. It follows an American family invited to a remote British farmhouse for the weekend. At first, it seems like a pleasant retreat but soon, the family finds themself in a nightmare-like scenario where disturbing behaviors and boundary violations mount.
Speak No Evil looks at the terror of social discomfort, passive-aggression, and the paralyzing fear of being rude rather than depending on gore or jump scares.
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For audiences gripped by Speak No Evil’s slow-burning dread and its deeply human horror, there are many other films exploring similar themes. These movies look at the fear of overstepping social norms, the psychological toll of being too polite, and the harrowing consequences of trusting the wrong people.
The Invitation, Funny Games, The Strangers, and 4 other horror thriller films like Speak No Evil
1) The Invitation (2022)
The Invitation, directed by Jessica M. Thompson, is a gothic-inspired horror thriller that modernizes classic vampire lore with a sinister twist. It follows Evelyn “Evie” Jackson (Nathalie Emmanuel), a struggling artist from New York who takes a DNA test after her mother's death and discovers a long-lost family branch in England.
Her newfound cousin Oliver welcomes her warmly and whisks her away to a lavish wedding at the eerie New Carfax Abbey. The grandeur of the estate and its enigmatic lord, Walter De Ville (Thomas Doherty), quickly seduces her. However, underneath all the charm and luxury lies a blood-soaked family legacy, and Evie soon discovers that her invitation is anything but innocent.
Rooted in the mythology of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Invitation spins an atmospheric web of romance, deception, and terror. What starts as a fairy-tale encounter quickly turns into a struggle for survival as Evie learns she’s been chosen to become a vampire bride in a centuries-old pact.
Where to watch: The film is available for streaming on Netflix and Hulu
2) Funny Games (2007)
Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a deconstruction of violence in media, remade shot-for-shot from his 1997 Austrian original but placed in an American setting. Anchored by unnerving performances from Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet as Paul and Peter, respectively, the film follows a wealthy family held hostage in their vacation home by two eerily polite young men.
Beneath their crisp tennis whites and friendly facades lies a cruelty that is methodical, detached, and sadistically performative. Haneke deliberately strips away cinematic conventions of justice and catharsis, instead offering a grim mirror to audiences who consume violence as entertainment.
Funny Games is particularly unsettling due to its unwavering refusal to absolve viewers of responsibility. Like Speak No Evil, it interrogates the dangerous social compulsion to be polite, even when one's safety is clearly at risk.
Ann and George, the victims, hesitate, falter, and try to reason with their tormentors—responses born not from naivety but from deeply ingrained social conditioning.
Where to watch: The film is available for streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video
3) The Strangers (2008)
Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers is a haunting exercise in minimalism and dread. The real terror in the film doesn't lie in supernatural elements but in the cold, motiveless intrusion of violence. Much like Speak No Evil, The Strangers also explores the fragility of safety and how politeness, routine, and silence can sometimes become tools for psychological horror.
Set in an isolated vacation home, the film follows Kristen and James, a couple whose relationship is strained by emotional distance. However, their night takes a dark turn after masked strangers begin to terrorize them. There are no backstories or twisted motives — the attackers offer a chilling explanation for terrorizing the couple: “Because you were home.”
Both films find power in their quietness, and long pauses, spare dialogue, and slow pacing leave the audience grasping for control, just as the protagonists do. The invaders in The Strangers, much like the hosts in Speak No Evil, use social cues and passive aggression as psychological weapons. Both stories serve as brutal reminders that human monsters don't need a reason, they just need access.
Where to watch: The film is available for streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video
4) Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene is a psychological portrait of a young woman unraveling in the aftermath of emotional and physical abuse. The film’s fragmented narrative fluctuates between Martha’s (Elizabeth Olsen) time in a cult and her uneasy return to normalcy. It mirrors her deteriorating mental state, where memory, trauma, and reality blur into one disorienting experience.
Much like Speak No Evil, this film examines the insidious nature of manipulation. While Speak No Evil explores coercion through social niceties and the pressure to conform, Martha Marcy May Marlene focuses on how sustained psychological conditioning can corrode identity. In both stories, the terror is quiet, internal, and lingering.
Where Speak No Evil confronts the viewer with the horror of not saying “no,” Martha Marcy May Marlene shows what happens when “no” has been taken away altogether. Martha’s every attempt to reclaim autonomy is thwarted by fear, doubt, and the psychological residue of her past.
Where to watch: The Elizabeth Olsen-starrer is Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video
5) The Lodge (2019)
The slow-burning psychological horror thriller The Lodge by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala replaces conventional shocks with anxiety and emotional disintegration. Emphasizing atmosphere, solitude, and interpersonal conflict, it subverts horror rules much like Speak No Evil does.
The narrative centers on Grace (Riley Keough), a mother with a horrific background who is left in a snow-covered lodge with her two children. As Grace's hold on reality breaks, the barriers between truth and fantasy are blurred right in front of the viewers' eyes as they are sucked into her spiral of terror and uncertainty.
What starts as a family trip turns into psychological warfare, filled with guilt, and sadness. Still in grief over their mother's demise, the kids mercilessly exploit Grace's pain by releasing something they are powerless over. Anchored by Keough's strong performance and a tight, spooky atmosphere, Franz and Fiala craft a terrible picture of a woman on the brink.
Where to watch: The film is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video
6) Calibre (2018)
Calibre by Matt Palmer is a tightly coiled British thriller that investigates how a single mistake may lead to a moral nightmare. Childhood friends Vaughn (Jack Lowden) and Marcus (Martin McCann) travel to the Scottish Highlands on a shooting trip. However, they accidentally kill a young kid and subsequently his father as well.
What follows is a dramatic spiral into shame, desperation, and survival as the two attempt to hide their crime while living a hamlet that becomes suspicious. As the isolated countryside closes in and paranoia grows, Calibre becomes less about escape and more about moral decay.
Much like Speak No Evil, Calibre places its characters in ethically fraught territory where silence and misguided loyalty have devastating consequences. Both films use isolation—physical and emotional—to intensify the tension and examine how far people will go when self-preservation kicks in.
Where to watch: The film is available for streaming on Netflix
7) Goodnight Mommy (2022)
Goodnight Mommy, directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala is a psychological horror film. It is the story of a pair of twin boys who suspect the woman wrapped in bandages after a surgery isn’t their real mother. Like Speak No Evil, it explores terror through fractured family bonds, focusing on growing distrust and emotional distance rather than overt scares.
The 2022 American remake is directed by Matt Sobel and stars Naomi Watts. The film follows twins Elias and Lukas, who return to live with their estranged mother after their parents’ divorce. As strange behavior and eerie signs mount, Elias eventually discovers the tragic truth: Lukas died accidentally, and he has been hallucinating his brother’s presence.
Where to watch: The film is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video
Speak No Evil is available for online streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video.
