The Unrelenting Grief of 'Talk to Me'
A24’s new horror hit, Talk To Me, begins in a rowdy fit of chaos. The film, which debuted on July 28, tells a tale of teens playing party games with an embalmed hand—which allows them to see and speak to the undead. What could go wrong, right?
Well, Danny and Michael Philippou—Australian YouTubers who make their directorial debuts in Talk to Me—throw us into the middle of a high school house party. We see the familiar pounding of electronic music and teenagers drunkenly stumbling over each other. The camera focuses on the back of our desperate protagonist, Cole (Ari McCarthy), who is searching for his brother, Duckett (Sunny Johnson). Finally, we settle in on a locked door, and Duckett is on the other side. Cole bangs on the door. That doesn't work. He smashes his shoulder on it. Still no luck. Then, Cole kicks it down. What lies within the room? Are we ready to see it?
Throughout Talk to Me, I kept coming back to this moment—which, it turns out, foreshadows the dark crux of the film: How do we reach out to our lost loved ones, when they’ve closed themselves off to us, locked the door, and thrown away the key?
Known for their chaotic YouTube videos, the Philippou brothers' first feature effort shows off a surprisingly deft ability to balance emotional weight with well-calculated scares. After Talk to Me's world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, those who saw the movie immediately labeled it as the scariest film of the year. Critics gave Talk to Me just about every superlative in the horror-movie lexicon. ("Talk to Me delivers an intense, nightmarish horror movie that’ll leave you breathless.") But walk into Talk To Me expecting scares and gore on the level of Hereditary or X, and you’ll be disappointed. Really, the film delivers its best thrills when the emotional drama is dialed up to the max—and the blood and guts are dialed back.
This is painfully evident from Talk To Me’s first scene, which pulses with narrative intent. When Cole finally makes it to his brother, we know that something isn’t right. He argues with Duckett, who is seemingly catatonic, speaking in cryptic, disturbing phrases. Cole shields his brother from the barrage of iPhone-wielding teens—who are more interested in recording the situation than stepping in to help. Before the brothers can reconcile or escape, Duckett grabs a knife, stabs his brother, and kills himself. With an inexplicable act of violence between two brothers—Cole trying to save Duckett, and Duckett overcome with demonic rage—Talk to Me immediately begins to elevate itself from a simple possession story to a gut-wrenching tale about the crippling loneliness of grief.
It's a natural segue into another family tragedy: the introduction of Mia (Sophie Wilde), a young girl who is struggling to understand her mother’s sudden death—and her father’s ensuing depression. Mia’s loneliness bleeds through the screen; we only see her light up when she spends time with her friends Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Riley (Joe Bird). The three go to a party, where everyone's playing a game, if you can even call it that: grabbing an embalmed hand, saying "talk to me,” and welcoming spirits into your body. But the possessions should never go over 90 seconds. The hand, rumored to be the dismembered appendage of a powerful medium, is a red herring—and we quickly learn that it's not nearly the scariest thing in Talk to Me.
Eventually, it's Mia's turn to grab the hand, which gives her visions of decaying corpses. But her brush with these spirits quickly turns physical. They contort Mia’s face and blow out her pupils until her eyes go completely black. When doors slam open and disembodied voices ring from the rest of the teens' mouths, everyone is downright thrilled. Even Mia, who is downright joyful after her ghostly encounter. Wilde skillfully portrays Mia’s turn from fragile and forlorn to giddy and enthralled by this dark thrill. It’s hard to keep your eyes off her—just like all the other kids in the room, who eagerly record her every move. Like Duckett, Mia finally found her escape.
A group of teens playing dangerous with a ghostly conduit? It's hardly a brand-new convention. Still, Talk to Me feels fresh, due to the emotionally grounded performances of its young cast, and how the Philippous continuously raise the stakes on the consequences of their characters’ horrendous choices. By chasing the high she gets from communing with the dead, Mia avoids confronting the painful truth about her mother's death and reconciling with her father. When she finally contacts the spirit of whom she thinks is her mother—communicating through a possessed Riley—she goes past the 90-second safety window, which causes the young boy to beat himself nearly to death.
But Talk to Me's biggest scares aren’t the few scenes of violence, Mia’s ghoulish mother, or even Mia's nightmarish vision of undead bodies torturing Riley’s soul while he lies comatose in the hospital. The true horror is watching Mia, in her loneliness and desperation, fall victim to the voices telling her to hurt the ones who love and care for her. Blood and guts may exhilarate you, but the Philippous know that it's the secret wounds that keep you up at night. They gladly sink their embalmed hand into those sore spots and don't let go.
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