The story is inspired by the experiences of Christian Tafdrup, director of the original Danish Speak No Evil (2022), who had befriended a Dutch couple while on holiday in Tuscany with his wife. Although the Dutch were a bit socially awkward, both couples got along very well, and after returning home, Tafdrup received an invitation from the Dutch family to come over to the Netherlands. He briefly considered it, but decided that he would feel odd staying with people he didn't really know; his story for the movie came about when he unleashed his darkest fantasies on what could have happened, had he accepted (while maintaining that the original Dutch couple had never given off any bad vibes). In this remake, the nationalities of the two families have been changed to American and British.
James McAvoy stated that he purposely didn't watch the original Danish Speak No Evil (2022) before he started work on this remake, so that it wouldn't influence the interpretation of his role. He watched it within 24 hours after filming was concluded, and was very impressed.
Filmed mainly in Gloucester, UK, and one week of filming in Croatia.
The engraving on the watch that Ant shows Agnes is in Danish and translates roughly as "Happy 40th birthday" with some initials.
Director James Watkins was considering doing a film with Blumhouse, and had never heard of the Danish film Speak No Evil (2022) when they gave him a copy of the film for inspiration. He was impressed by it (calling it "a strong brew, an 8% beer or something"), and felt that its really dark ending was reminiscent of the ending of his own Eden Lake (2008). Little did he know that Christian Tafdrup (director of the Danish version) had said that Eden Lake was one of his references when making the original Speak No Evil.
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