An uncomfortable mirror runs through Don’t Talk to Strangers, the film by British director James Watkins (The Woman in Black, Silence on the Lake) for the influential production company Blumhouse.
The American family made up of Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy), Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) meet during a leisure stay in Italy the trio of compatriots of English origin made up of Paddy (James McAvoy), Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their son Ant (Dan Hough).
While the first clan keeps up appearances and good manners, Paddy quickly shows himself to be a charismatic, jocular and exhibitionist father who drags chairs, throws himself into the pool, dances, rides a motorbike and makes inappropriate jokes with other tourists. His wife is passively complicit in each of his madness, and his son bears the burden of not being able to speak because he was born with a shorter than normal tongue.
Despite these eccentricities, Paddy and company captivate the dapper Daltons, who accept the invitation to visit their new friends at their remote farm after their trip. Said and done: the Daltons arrive by car to stay for a few days in this very European country house, rustic, old-fashioned and full of paintings and knick-knacks.
There, the contrasts are emphasized and made concrete: Paddy hunts with rifles, sings pop songs at the top of his lungs, treats his mute son inconsiderately, and together with his wife, they smoke joints and confess their sexual intimacies to the astonished Daltons.
A couple of key conversations turn the differences towards the ideological: Paddy discusses Louise’s vegetarianism, defending the importance of any debate, while revealing that he and his wife have distanced themselves from social media because everything there is hypocrisy and dishonesty.
They claim to be “outcasts” who live a wild and unprejudiced existence, although certain indications suggest that they hide something darker beneath the surface.
Don’t Talk to Strangers strictly follows the premises of the horror film in vogue, like Get Out!, which combines social satire with thriller, in this case exposing the ghosts of sedition in a country politically fractured into factions of “strangers.” Although it is a remake of the Danish Gæsterne (2022), Watkins’ film is quite reminiscent of the two Cape Fear films, where a family was forced to bring out their deepest demons to the detriment of their civilized morals.
However, contrary to those memorable films, Don’t Talk to Strangers exposes a much more circumstantial mood that ends up being limiting, precisely in a film that deals with limits and the risk of crossing them.
To see Don’t talk to strangers
USA, 2024. Horror. Screenplay: Christian Tafdrup, Mads Tafdrup and James Watkins. Direction: James Watkins. With: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy. Duration: 110 minutes. In theaters.
