Talk To Me
How important is a fully formed prefrontal cortex in avoiding dangerous entanglements with the dead? If the events of Danny and Michael Philippou’s debut feature Talk To Me are anything to go by, then ‘very’. Spiritual possession is the drug du jour for the film’s South Australian teens with nothing better to do on their nights than go to gathos and film their friends’ bad trips for the amusement of their Snapchat followers. It’s all fun and games until it’s not in this confident first step into filmmaking from the RackaRacka twins, whose golden era YouTube work my sister once described as “chaotic but randomly well-done.” I wouldn’t know anything about that, but I know that one part addiction allegory and one part descent into the occult equals a whole lot of fun for audiences thirsting for an Aussie horror film with some bite.
A prologue that ends in eye-watering violence establishes that the kids are not alright in suburban Adelaide. A young man called Duckett is out of sorts at his own house party and before the adults can be called to intervene, the host shuts it down with a kitchen knife. In the neighbouring ‘burbs, 17-year-old Mia (Sophie Wilde) spends the majority of her time at her bestie’s house instead of in the company of her emotionally closed father. It’s the two-year anniversary of her mother’s suicide, and hangs with Jade (Alexandra Jensen), her younger brother Riley (Joe Bird) and their cool single mum Sue (Miranda Otto) are preferable to the sombre mood at home. One night, the girls venture to a house party with a curious new attraction: an embalmed, severed hand that serves as a conduit to the spirit world for those brave enough to grab hold. Mia, in search of answers to her mother’s death and a distraction from her unresolved grief, takes to her trip with slightly worrying ease. But the next adventurer to set off will not return to the land of the living so unscathed.
Like any good horror film, this one has rules that its characters must follow before inevitably breaking them and bringing doom upon themselves. The game is as follows:
Light a candle to open ‘the door’.
Grasp the hand, say “Talk to me” and someone deceased will immediately appear in front of you.
If you’re feeling brave (or adequately pressured from the sea of phone lights eagerly anticipating your amusing trip), give the spirit informed consent with “I let you in.”
For no longer than 90 seconds, you are possessed by your randomly assigned spirit. With luck, you’ll get a reasonably benevolent or slightly confused spirit who’ll just make your body do funny things.
Before your 90 seconds are up, your spotter blows out the candle and detaches you from the hand.
Mia’s trip goes off as such and, save for an unsettling comment directed at Riley, ends as it should. But a fixation starts to form and Mia’s desperation to connect with her dead mum leads her down a destructive past with far reaching effects.
The concept of teens naively dabbling in the occult and experiencing the consequences is nothing new, but there’s a freshness to Talk To Me that comes from its makers’ unbridled enthusiasm for the genre and their understanding of their young subjects. The kids in the film speak and interact like real young people, and so too are their reactions to fucked phenomena absurdly realistic. Adult responses to witnessing a teenager’s sclera fill with black and their bodies become puppets to potentially sinister forces would (I hope) not include filming it and laughing, but these kids are living their best lives without responsibilities or careers to jeopardise. The young cast do an excellent job of playing their roles with sincerity and authenticity, making the nastiness to come hit that much harder.
Of particular strength is Sophie Wilde, who imbues Mia with a sense of tragedy and whose physicality in her possession scenes is truly shiver inducing. Joe Bird as the wholly innocent Riley is heartbreaking to watch and lends a lot of emotional weight to the film. Zoe Terakes as the charismatic bully Hayley and Chris Alosio as the effortlessly chill Joss are the perfect pair to introduce the hand to the central characters and they provide much of the film’s levity. And Miranda Otto is a scene-stealer as Sue, the not-like-a-regular-mum we should all aspire to be.
Respectable practical effects and sound design further bolster the film above anything Blumhouse has put out lately, and it’s easy to see where it comes from; the brothers Philippou were crew members on one of the best examples of 21st century Australian horror, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook. Focusing on chills rather than jumps, Talk To Me uses enough horror tropes for familiarity but adds homegrown flavours that ground the film and elevate the drama to a level that’s scarier than the visuals we see onscreen. Like It Follows, Talk To Me smartly chooses to focus on one person’s perspective instead of flitting between each teen and their experience, centering the story around Mia so that her decision, and the guilt that it produces, is shared by the audience.
This focus allows the film to explore its themes in more depth and raise questions that horror movies don’t often bother with. There’s the notion that it’s impossible to protect young people from their own delusions of immortality; the frustration of being a young person in the digital age with the world’s answers at your fingertips but somehow, none of your own; the fracturing of familial relationships when a parent can’t meet the emotional needs of their child; the film’s title is also a cry for help from its subjects, but only the dead are listening.
Premiering at Sundance and being thrust into a bidding war as hot property thereafter, Talk To Me was picked up by everyone's favourite indie distributor, A24. It has since been compared to Ari Aster’s Hereditary and hyped to the point that it’s been unable to meet some people’s expectations. Thankfully, I went into the film having avoided the trailer, synopses and information on distributors (not that that’s any real indicator of quality other than uniqueness) and was pleasantly surprised by the experience. It’s a film full of frenetic energy that spins the familiar into the original, boasts an excellent command of tone and convincing performances from its cast. Talk To Me is not The Exorcist, it’s not Hereditary and it’s likely not whichever other film you personally think is “the scariest of all time”. But to me, it is disturbing, appropriately nasty, and a proper scare worth going to the cinema for.
Verdict:
Laura ☆☆☆☆
Alex ☆☆☆☆
Talk To Me is in cinemas now. Take a buddy.
