Talk to Me, 2022.
Written and directed by Danny and Michael Philippou.
Starring Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji, and Zoe Terakes.
SYNOPSIS:
When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and opens the door to the spirit world forcing them to choose who to trust: the dead or the living.
Australian filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou – best known for their YouTube channel RackaRacka – deliver a supremely confident feature film debut with the twisted, high-energy Talk to Me.
Teenager Mia (Sophie Wilde) continues to be haunted by her mother’s apparently accidental death, but everything changes when she attends a party where an embalmed, severed hand is presented – a hand which, if touched, allows contact with the spirits of the dead. Each time the hand is touched, a new spirit appears, and if the user dares utter the words, “I let you in,” the spirit is able to possess their body temporarily. While this offers Mia a unique opportunity to make contact with her departed mother, prolonged use of the hand also threatens to irreparably warp her entire reality.
The Philippou brothers’ film offers up an attention-grabbingly distinctive riff on teen horror typicality. The severed hand provides such a strong setup for the rest of the movie – both hilariously depraved and genuinely grotesque – while, through Mia’s quasi-addiction to it, serving up an amusing-if-obvious metaphor for substance abuse.
Though the sights that Mia and her friends witness while holding the embalmed hand are regularly horrific, the potential for lower-stakes humiliation is also ripe; spirits are able to reveal compromising home truths about those they inhabit to the rest of the group, and make them do some truly gross, embarrassing things. Naturally, the rest of the group unsurprisingly captures each gnarly possession on their phones for social media posterity.
It certainly makes for a transfixing setup that walks on a tonal tight-rope, maintaining an intense vibe in both its more comedic asides and horrific bouts of violence. A brutal opening sequence which shan’t be spoiled sets the tone perfectly, and though Talk to Me isn’t a wall-to-wall gorefest, the delineated blood-letting sequences are nauseatingly brutal.
It’s a regularly grim piece of work, but weaves between tones impressively lithely. The mother of Mia’s best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), Sue (Miranda Otto), is an occasional source of comic relief in the pic’s first half; a typical concerned mother who couldn’t even conceive of what her daughter and her friends are up to behind her back.
This is also a handsomely presented effort, courtesy of crisp lensing from DP Aaron McLisky, who opens the film with a long pass through a chaotic party and maintains slick, confident camerawork throughout. Gore and makeup effects are also outstanding, while periodic use of pulsing hip-hop tracks seal the aesthetic deal.
But it’s a terrific performance from lead actress Sophie Wilde that truly elevates the material; from her naturalistic chemistry with her co-stars to the physically demanding nature of the possession scenes, Wilde makes Mia imminently sympathetic while palpably selling her growing fear. The Philippous have also cast the wider ensemble with some of the most authentic teens you’ll see in any movie this year, while Miranda Otto is typically strong as Jade’s increasingly pissed off, traumatised mother.
The narrative takes a more conventional road in its third act, leading to a predictable-yet-satisfying ending, but the filmmakers maintain a crucially firm grasp on their character work while delivering some shrewdly conceived set-pieces. Above all else, it’s an impressive calling card for the directing duo, who’ve made a basically seamless transition to the feature film realm.
Pinballing between perversely fun and totally fucked up, Talk to Me finds a uniquely offbeat throughline to explore trauma in the horror genre, aided by a remarkable performance from lead Sophie Wilde.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
Originally published January 22, 2023. Updated April 11, 2023.
