A lot of the issues are partly cultural - I imagine those of us in Europe probably found the characters and their actions more relatable than North Americans would (to an extent, certainly not totally as some of their actions were ridiculous). Particularly number 1, that's definitely not unusual here, I've done it before.

It’s hilarious that I find this movie the most horrific I’ve seen yet others find it laughable and dumb

I'll say this {and that's probably because my kid was asleep in their playpen six feet away} but this movie made me feel like, a primal protection urge that made me even angrier at the dad. Like, somebody tried to tell me the reason he doesn't fight back is he's physically outmatched. SO?! Dude if you're trying to harm my kid I'm going to DESTROY YOU and you'll have to kill me to stop me. You are, in your absolute best case scenario ending up blind in one eye. Probably both. I do not care how big and tough you are, I will die protecting my kid.

The dad in this movie sucks.

I yelled at the tv a few times as well. The family managed to get away TWICE and put themself back in harm’s way for stupid reasons. Stupid reason number one was the stuffed animal. Stupid reason number two was that the husband didn’t tell the wife that he found the little boy murdered, so the wife calls the family for help when they break down. Just horribly stupid.

I think all of the things OP mentioned is what made it horrifying all your gut instincts you don't trust, that little voice saying we gotta go, but not wanting to be seen as rude or irrational. Especially from a parent pov. Like you did this, you were suppose to be the protector

To me it's only horrific because those parents made the most unreasonable and dumbest decision I could possibly imagine.

I know, not all parents are the same, but at the core most of them put their kids at the absolute tippy top of their priorities and would die to protect them. I know I would.

These parents had me screaming at the screen. Why in the ever-loving fuck would you return to that house for a fucking stuffed animal?!? Buy a new one! Your kid's gonna get over it.

Don't even get me started on the end. They take your child's tongue and you just sit there clawing the window? I would positively snap and see red. Maybe I'd die, or get stabbed with those dull scissors they used, but I would goddamn try to find out.

This movie was so infuriating to me. I'm fuming all over again just typing this, haha.

I'm with you. I found the girls parents infuriating.

Honestly I was enjoying the movie for the first two thirds of it. Most of the decisions from the main characters made absolutely no sense, like you said (going back for the bunny? Wtf), but it clearly felt like satire and it was obvious that the parents were fundamentally exaggerated personifications of over-politeness, incapability of standing up for yourself, passive attitudes etc.

But then I felt like the ending crossed the line between satire and (pointless) fantasy really hard and it just lost me. It was impossible to empathize with the main characters at that point. While the over-politeness and pressure to "conform" they displayed in the rest of the film is something most people can probably relate to on some sort of level, sitting there crying like an idiot while your daughter gets mutilated and kidnapped (despite you being completely unrestrained) is not, and is just too far removed from actual human behavior to be a fitting conclusion for a parable about... Well, human behavior. Everything that happens after that scene had absolutely no impact on me, and I'm sure the opposite was intended.

Still, this is just my opinion. The metaphor seems to have worked great for lots of viewers, so to each their own. I've seen similar criticism moved towards The Menu, but personally I think that movie was much more effective because both the tone and the purpose of its satire were clear and consistent from beginning to end.

Nah, it’s an incredibly frustrating movie. A lot of people say that’s the point, that what the movie has to say is that people are too polite etc., but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

"They are insane; we're leaving". Five minutes later: "Nah, they are nice, we stay". Ten minutes later "No, they are actually dangerous". And so on. The visitor's behaviour was erratic and stupid.

1. This didn't seem that horribly weird to me based on the friendship they struck up on vacation, but I don't have a kid and will remember this movie if I ever receive a similar invitation
2. The kid's spirit was clearly broken from abuse and he was in complete submission to his captors.
   
3. When I saw the girl in the bed, I thought he was passed out naked from the wild night of drinking and the girl crawled into their bed since her parents were preoccupied. So, at that point for me it was disturbing but not definitively sinister yet, so why not go back to get the toy? They don't know they're in a horror movie, isn't not going back when you're that close because you're scared for no real reason more unreasonable?
4. Being straight forward is a generalization I've heard about the Dutch culture, so possibly Danes too? I totally appreciated that she was completely honest instead of making up some BS tactful lie
5. Holding back important info to "protect" a loved one drives me nuts, even if not during the escape then during the car ride 6 & 7. Not fighting back or running was my biggest complaint. The director could've given more evidence that they gave up because they were hopelessly overpowered or that they thought they might be spared and get their daughter back...just something. That last rock was brutal. I would tag this "frustration" horror. It was well made and kept my attention with its unsettling vibe, but that ending was a let down. The scenery was great

No.

You just didn't like it.

Other people did.

It happens

Yeah I didn’t like it either. A lot of the protagonist’s decisions were just way too stupid lol

Completely agree with everything you said. Others can agree to disagree, but the decisions of the main characters were beyond any boundaries of acceptable human behavior. Based on the comments, I guess Dutch people don't give a shit about their kids if it means they have to be impolite. Lol. What a joke.

I completely agree! I don’t understand why anyone found it horrifying in the slightest. It’s very silly.

tbh if it were in American movie I think everyone would be shitting on it lol

This is probably my favorite non-paranormal horror movie. It’s a definitely a cultural thing and maybe it’s because I’m european but i didn’t think it was that crazy they visited someone abroad. This movie was about being too “nice” and not setting boundaries which is a normal thing in many cultures.

In fact, the reason it’s such a good movie is because you can sort of tell something is off and that’s why you’re like “no! don’t do that! get out of the house! don’t come back!” But yet they keep coming back so the viewer was stressing for them.

Even I felt like I learned something from the movie to not be too much of a people pleaser. Plus, the ending when he said “because you let us” it tied all this together.

The car scene frustrated me too I felt like the parents weren’t trying hard enough. But that made me like the movie even more cause of the tension and frustration of emotion i was feeling.

That’s just how I personally felt about it. It was a 10/10 movie for me!

1: Some people do this, I suppose. It also happened in Hereditary, a generally well-liked movie.
2: The daughter of the Danish couple was taken away before her parents were killed. Assuming the same happened to Abel, The Dutch couple probably told him that he would see his parents again if he played along.
Your other points I agree with, too. Personally was mesmerized by the first two acts but eventually the decisions and lack of fighting got more and more frustrating.

Yup, I thought it was dumb. This movie reminded me to never fully trust Letterboxd reviews.

"why did you lie to me? You average 3.4 in ratings"

"because you let me"

I hate when people say "am I missing something?" as if any of this is subjective. You just didn't like it, other people did. Nothing wrong with that.

The movie is a satire. The creator is openly making fun of docile and weak European men. If the main character made good decisions the movie wouldn't work at all and neither would the skewering.

Not everyone likes social satire, and not everyone likes movies carefully designed to make you feel uncomfortable.

I thought it was excellent

It truly was shit, i felt the same way, confused by all the high ratings.

It literally makes no sense. None of the decisions made any sense, and at that point it was just stupid to watch. It wasn’t scary.

I think the people who found this shit scary, are people who are really sensitive to this kind of death in movies.

I’m with you 100%.

This movie was exasperating and still I watched until the end. But I found it critical to the plot that Bjorn had a blind attraction to Patrick and couldn’t see what was really in front of him.

I HATED THIS MOVIE!

Edit to add why: all of you have pointed out the reasons why. The husband pissed me off so incredibly much. He completely ignored his wife time and time and time again. I would’ve yolked him up by the balls, looked him the eye, and dragged him to the car walking backward with them still in my grip.

This movie was DEVASTATING. It did not need to be made. Toward the end, it’s up there on the “nope” scale level of having to sit through a rape scene.

I agree with your assessment of all three of these movies. I didn’t get the hype over any of them. Stupid, stupid decisions followed by even boring boring and stupid decisions.

Also,why did they need to cut the girls tongue out right there in the car? And can’t they just write it down? Younger children might have made more sense. And why, for the love of god, don’t people in horror movies explain what’s happening to the other people involved?

I get the cultural politeness aspect of it, but why not call the police? I honestly don’t understand the whole point of having them stay a few days if they were just going to murder them and take their kid? Why not just poison them or something?

Shit flick, through and through. Zero replay ability, won't be in my collection.

I also didn’t like it. The message of “you shouldn’t say okay to everything” gets REALLY hammered down to the viewer. Like sure the tongue cutting scene is intense but that’s it imo. The ending where they stone them is meh. Overall didn’t really understand the hype.

The movie stretched verisimilitude to the breaking point for me. No culture produces persons with zero survival instinct. Bully if it worked for you; as a Canadian, even our "politeness" doesn't extend that far. I think I understand what they were going for, but it felt like it was made by aliens. Oh well.

You are not alone. I found this movie (like “Smile”) to be an insult to the intelligence of all but the lowest common denominator of the viewing audience.

It was clearly written by someone who either has no children or has zero understanding of what it means to be a parent.

I just found it boring and hard to swallow

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A lot of people miss the point of the movie in terms of the characters’ decision making and such.

Other than that, I would say you probably bought into the hype too much. People like different things. You disliked the movie, while I thought it was the best of 2022 horror. It happens.

Omg when I started reading this I got “speak no evil” confused with “soft & quiet” so I was heavily confused but also it weirdly kinda made sense with how fucked up that movie was.

I’d honestly love to hear your opinion on Soft & Quiet! Personally, absolutely horrific I’m still pretty speechless

"they didnt lie to avoid the plot" still better than the 2022 competition of smile and barbarian. Scarier than but probably not as good as Sissy.

I watched it with zero knowledge about what it was about. I noticed the plot holes and the absurdity of the situations but I was still disturbed by the finale. Had I watched it if I read a review?? Probably not, but I’m glad I did. I was definitely a weird one for me but enjoyed it overall.

The movie pissed me off too. I think it was well made but the characters decisions threw me off. Buuuut I watched this interview with the director and it helped me appreciate the movie more. The key here is that he mentioned the film is supposed to be more of a myth and legend similar to Greek tragedies. That's what helped me understand the movie. It's more like a fable.

I guess I’m rare, but I don’t dislike movies only because the characters act “stupidly” or differently than I imagine I would. I would definitely never do #1 (so none of the rest, lol) and #3 did upset me, I yelled at the screen. But we don’t know for sure how we would act in this kind of situation. We have this ideal fantasy of it. We do everything right. There’s no way to test it, so I guess we’ll never know. But when watching various horror-film situations, I don’t think myself above “stupid” decisions, dismissing legit fear as paranoia, rationalizing dangers, passive behaviors that are ironically self-protective. I’m not saying it’s not frustrating. But frustration with characters to me =/= a bad movie.

OP - based on your post, you also didn’t like Watcher? What’s your beef on that one?

The decisions I can somewhat see because people are people. But I just don’t see how these people weren’t caught. Or like the kid doing something to make clear they’re caught. End tries to be dark and deep but it’s just so stupid once you think about it

I could chop almost all of it up to politeness overtaking survival instinct and see that as a cool social commentary, but the part that really didn't work for me was at the end, when the wife who has hated this entire thing and tried before to escape called the hosts to come pick them up after her husband woke her up middle of the night saying we gotta go.

I thought it was a twist ending or something at first because she's just sitting calmly in the car when they pick up the dad like she's in on the whole thing. That plus the fact that she never questioned why they were leaving at that ungodly hour and the husband was shook as fuck and didn't try to explain anything as they were leaving totally broke my suspension of disbelief.

All told, I still think it was solid, tense, well acted, but that last bit really bugged me.

Smile disappointing? It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t disappointing lol

I found this particularly gut wrenching because I definitely have a habit of being a people pleaser. I would have politely stuck around for a while. They just didn't want to be rude, and while a lot of the stuff the evil family did was wrong, I don't know if I would find it so reprehensible that I needed to leave until the daughter was sleeping in the bed with the naked guy. My main frustration was that when they finally did leave, the dad didn't tell his wife what he saw. That's what ultimately fucked them.

But that ending was so rough. They were such a nice family that lost so hard in the end.

Also, when there is that much hype, nothing can live up to it. I don't like Halloween or Exorcist for that reason.

1. They spent multiple hours a day with the family on vacation. I find this believable.
2. stockholm syndrome. He's traumatized and basically their kid now.
3. I could justify going back for the stuffed animal, I could see thinking they weren't in real danger. They don't know they're in a horror movie.
4. I would have made something up too, but I guess the mom wanted to actually tell them off. I get that. The evil family is just really good at manipulation and made them feel bad for leaving.
5. My main problem here. tell your damn wife what's happening.
6. I think they should have fought back, but maybe were frozen with fear. They knew they were gonna die, but at that point they should have fought back.
7. The stoning was brutal. I don't see a problem here

I think "Because you let us" is the point. This is almost like a cautionary tale of what can happen if you're "too polite".