We continue to review the latest streaming movies so that you don't miss anything. In this edition of the ‘Movies Already Online’ column: a horror with James McAvoy as a psychopathic family man, a comedy with neurotic Jason Schwartzman, Samara Weaving in an Estonian forest and a quiet drama about a family camping trip. The Halloween treat is Beyond Evil, the 7th instalment of the horror-almanac.
‘Don't Tell Anyone,’ directed by James Watkins
A couple of prim Americans (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis) meet swaggering Brits (James McAvoy and Aisling Franchosi) on holiday - an unexpected but quite believable contrast of mentalities. The nasty head of the British family manages to impress his new acquaintances by nudging his hotel neighbours beyond the foul edge and riding a scooter through Italian streets without a helmet. So after a while the Americans (long ago, by the way, relocated to London) respond to the invitation to visit the second family in the countryside.
In addition, their children, a boy and a girl (Dan Hogue and Alix West Lefler), get along well (although the British son is mute). What a surprise to the guests when the farm owner's psychopathic tendencies don't even think of limiting themselves to trespassing and machista show-offs, but instead grow exponentially over the course of a hellish weekend.
‘Tell No One’ is an American remake of the very recent 2022 horror film of the same name . That film wasn't a masterpiece, but it made enough of a splash that all self-respecting horror fans got to it: in addition to eerily awkward dialogue across the cultural barrier, the 2022 film also hinged on an extremely shocking twist. Given that in the remake the twist is effectively spoilered for a large portion of the target audience, one wonders what good is even left? The first, blackly comedic part of the film is taken to the grotesque by horror-medium James Watkins (‘Paradise Lake,’ ‘The Woman in Black’), exploiting James McAvoy's eccentricity to the max. Both changes are clearly for the worse, so why anyone but the most ardent McAvoy fans would want to watch this version is utterly incomprehensible. Only one person can be praised here - a very capable child actor Dan Hogue, who played a mute boy: who knows, maybe he has a great future ahead of him.