'Talk To Me' A24 Australian Horror Movie Will Get Under Your Skin [Review]
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn't exist.
Talk to Me, from A24, grabs you by the throat from the very first scene, pulling you inescapably into its unrelenting darkness. Directed by Australian brothers, Danny and Michael Philippou, Talk to Me takes the notion of a game based on lore or local legend, like a “Bloody Mary,” and elevates it to something perfectly crafted to haunt your nightmares.
The premise of the game is simple, if not extremely ill-advised. To set the scene, a chair is placed in front of a small table, on which sits a candle, and a hand that looks like a prop made out of plaster. Whoever is playing must sit in said chair, and Joss (Chris Alosio) straps them in. They light the candle. Then, the person in the hot seat must hold the hand, and say, “Talk to Me.” This is the ritual phrase that must be uttered, just as kids say “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a mirror. Some kind of a spirit appears, one that only the person who is holding the embalmed hand can see.
They can tap out there, although peer pressure doesn’t seem to really allow for this to be a viable option, or if you want to really play the game, you say, “I let you in.” That allows the spirit to enter the body of the person tied to the chair. Their pupils become giant, black circles that take up almost the entire eyeball - so like The Jinx, but worse. Certain moments seem to reoccur - like how the person playing often looks like they are choking and suffocating as the spirit “enters” them - while others seem to be influenced by the individual spirits. The entire time, the person is holding that hand, which Haley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss say is a real, embalmed hand, either from a medium or a satanist.
Per the rules of Haley and Joss, the keepers of the spooky hand, you can’t play for longer than 90 seconds - “Or they’ll want to stay” - and you must blow out the candle - kind of like how you are supposed to say “goodbye,” when you are finished playing with a ouija board. They all treat this as some sort of party game, filming each other’s turns for social media. Jade (Alexandra Jensen) has no interest in messing with the beyond, but her best friend - and the protagonist - Mia (Sophie Wilde) absolutely insists. The results are nothing short of horrifying.
Mia’s turn begins in much the same way as the others, eyes go black, voice sounds different, odd mannerisms and movements. However, then it takes a turn. She stares down Jade’s little brother, Riley (Joe Bird), telling him that some unnamed man will “split him in half.” She screams for Riley to run, as the poor tween sits paralyzed in his spot on the couch, looking on in pure fear and bewilderment. You’d think something that scary would put a stop to playing this “game.” However, teenagers feel invincible, and so they continued taking turns becoming briefly possessed in a brilliantly-executed montage.
Talk to Me is scary. I jumped in my seat, and at one point (the opening scene) I audibly gasped. I watch a lot of horror movies, and that doesn’t happen often… especially when I’m sitting in a theater full of people. But it’s also a lot more than that. Like Hereditary, The Boogeyman, The Babadook (fun fact: Michael Philippou actually worked on this movie!), and other great films before it - Talk to Me is a meditation on grief, and how it changes a person. It can make you lie and avoid people. It can make you forget to eat, and unable to sleep. It can also make you pull a Bella Swan, and put yourself in dangerous situations, because you don’t want to feel anything, or to simply feel anything.
Talk to Me hits all of those notes, both in the reality of the film, as well as symbolically, with the supernatural elements that also tear lives apart. It’s an incredibly impressive feature film debut from the brothers, not unlike Jordan Peele’s iconic Get Out. It is also Wilde’s debut feature film, though you wouldn’t know it. In a wildly emotional role, the actress pulls it off with ease, making every pang of jealousy, every moment of devastation, and every ounce of fear feel authentic and believable.
The movie ratchets up the tension by building multi-faceted, authentic characters - like tough-loving and hilarious Sue, mother of Jade and Riley (played by the Supreme Aunt Zelda herself, Miranda Otto) - and telling you enough about them to make you care, raising the stakes. It’s edited brilliantly, and while it will make you jump, Talk to Me does it without relying on gimmicks, but rather showing you genuinely disturbing imagery that sometimes makes you want to crawl out of your skin.
The way these young people speak and behave feels very true to life, like you could know someone like Mia or Jade or Haley. When it’s funny, it’ll really make you laugh, and when it’s scary, it will mess you up. With a run time of just over 90 minutes, Talk to Me delivers an unforgettably bleak and thrilling experience, without falling prey to the “everything good must be over 3 hours long” trend going on in Hollywood right now.
I can’t stop thinking about it, and it will be agony waiting for it to premiere in theaters, July 28, so I can watch it again. Talk to Me is one movie horror fans really do not want to miss.
