Talk to Me review
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. For those who know me you know about my love for horror films so once a month I’m going to review and discuss a scary flick. We’ll look at the classics, some new films, and I want your suggestions on what I should review. I’ll do my best to cover all the different genres within the genre – slashers, ghosts, monsters, etc.
SPOILER ALERT! – These will be reviews so if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to watch it first before you read this. Let’s do this.
talk to me review
A24 wins again. I think I’ve written about their films before, and they are still the kings of horror. The latest nasty is a film called Talk to Me which could presumably be about anything I suppose. Twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou known for their YouTube videos, get very stylish here to give us a nice little Australian horror flick.
A high school party. Booze, folks acting crazy in a pool, loud music – good stuff. Camera follows a guy through all that into a hallway and starts banging on a bedroom door looking for his brother. He breaks down the door and starts walking out with said brother when he gets angry at everyone for recording this on their phones. He then turns around and is stabbed to death by the brother, the party crowd starts to run from him, and he then awkwardly and very frighteningly stabs himself in the forehead. Those are the first few minutes, and things don’t get better for anyone from there. Aussie teens sneak out to a party where a mummified hand is the object of attention. The hand is in the shaking position and is reputed to be chopped off from a medium. Kind of looks like Jim Morrison’s grave with all the writing on it. You sit down, get tied to a chair, someone lights a candle, and you say “talk to me” and shake the hand. Creepy dead people appear ala The Sixth Sense and you then say “I let you in” to get possessed by the hand. This has become viral thing for teens in this story as they all record each person’s go with it. The main character Mia is on the 2nd anniversary of her mother’s death and is still struggling. She gives it a go and loves the euphoria as does anyone who does this. Is this for real? Never had anything like this when I was in high school!
They all get together and do this another night and her best friend Jade’s little brother Riley goes under and is possessed by Mia’s dead mother. She can’t let him out of the trance (you need to release after 90 seconds as part of the rules) as she is overwhelmed by being able to communicate with her and things don’t go well for Riley. He is horribly injured and almost rips his eye out and ends up in critical care at the hospital. The family including the very cold mother want Mia away from them at this point, but she must help. She finds out more secrets her father was keeping about her mother and things spiral out of control. Her mother’s spirit begins controlling her and tries to get Mia to end Riley’s life – who is being tormented in a limbo underworld – in a very tense and scary fashion on a highway but it is Mia who ends up in the road. She returns to the hospital injured and sees Riley and family leaving in good health, as well as her father but she can’t communicate with anyone. The final scene is of a boy at a party shaking the hand and seeing Mia when he says talk to me.
This film had that big scare at the beginning so can it continue? I think it did. It’s not too gory but certainly has enough. The scenes when the kids get possessed are unsettling as their eyes go black and seem like they are a heartbeat away from almost suffocating or having a stroke. There is always some old rite of passage thing for kids at a party, but this is a little much to believe. They film it all though, so it’s really happening. It’s also very current as they all find out about the game via TikTok or Instagram, or other social media. Who needs a keg of Natural Ice when you have this, right?! There were moments where I sat and started talking back to the screen saying “please stop doing that” when the spirit possessing Riley is violently smashing his head and face at the party and at the hospital. That is what the filmmakers want me to do though so it’s great. Besides the scares of ghosts – definitely Mia’s mother – this movie makes you look at death and grief. I wrote about another Australian film The Babadook which is about nothing but death. This time it’s a little different in that Mia falls into a place where many of us do. Not fully understanding the loss and the grief and she horribly falls into an extreme situation in this picture.
How did Regan get possessed in The Exorcist? An Ouija board. Seriously, don’t mess around with stuff like this. While I like the trope in these films, I do think the world of spirits and the dead may be a real thing and is clearly misunderstood. For overall entertainment however, this movie delivers. I’d even say it spoke to me…
Enjoy the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLAKJu9aJys