Speak No Evil arrived on Shudder near the end of 2022 and has quickly become a favorite among the horror faithful. The movie, directed by Christian Tafdrup, follows a Danish familial trio: Bjørn, Louise and their daughter Agnes. The family meets and befriends a Dutch family while on vacation in Italy and soon finds themselves visiting their country cottage for a long weekend together. What ensues is an increasingly unnerving series of cringeworthy moments between the two families, culminating in a truly shocking and horrifying final act. However, for all of its darkness, this horror flick has a lot in common with a piece of comedic media -- The Office.

The Office finds its comedy from the awkward uncomfortability generated by a relatively normal collection of characters reacting to the constant boundary-pushing, inappropriate behavior of their boss, Michael Scott. Played to collar-tugging perfection by Steve Carrell, Michael Scott has become the ultimate signifier of what pop culture now commonly refers to as “cringe” humor. And just like Michael, Speak No Evil has its fair share of cringe moments.

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What Speak No Evil and The Office Have in Common

Speak No Evil

Speak No Evil flips The Office's structure, eliciting its tension and scares (in often darkly funny ways) from the same situational set-up. The patriarch of the villainous family at the heart of the film, Patrick, is essentially a sociopathic Michael Scott. Replace Michael's penchant for buffoonery with sadism, and there’s Patrick. A terrifying villain in normal clothes, he ignores boundaries, verbalized or not, and is constantly pushing against the familial protagonist's notions of polite behavior.

This correlation is surprising but not new. Horror and comedy have always quietly shared many structural similarities. The constant cycle of escalation, tension and release creates the intended audience reaction, whether it’s laughter or screams. Often, the two intermingle. It’s not uncommon to hear a theatrical audience laugh after a particularly shocking jump scare or gruesome kill. Whatever synapse is firing in the brain to make it so, the pathway to getting there is almost identical.

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The Differences Between Speak No Evil and The Office's Use of 'Cringe'

Michael Scott as Prison Mike in The Office.

Granted, The Office comparisons to Speak No Evil stop somewhere. The Office often finds a way to turn that cringe-inducing reaction into something heartwarming or wholesome. There is a cathartic geniality and warmth at the core of every awkward moment, with the knowledge that, in his heart, Michael's intentions are relatively pure. Speak No Evil offers none of that same hope. There is no warmth or catharsis. The finale of the Shudder horror film represents all the worst cringiness from The Office taken to its most logical, bleak extreme.

Speak No Evil finds a way to turn the hilarity of The Office into a deadly and depressing exploration of the dangers of assumed social contracts. It’s a stunning bit of genre work, lifted even further by excellent performances and beautiful camerawork. Unfortunately, the Danish horror currently streaming on Shudder will not offer the same kind of comfort viewing its sitcom counterpoint is so widely known for. But viewers can take comfort in the fact that the warm hug of The Office is only a few clicks away once the Speak No Evil credits roll.

To see how Shudder's horror film compares to The Office, Speak No Evil is streaming now.