Talk to Me is the latest horror film from powerhouse distributing and production studio A24, who are currently the only good studio in Hollywood at the moment. The film is directed by two brothers, Danny and Michael Phillipou, who, if you’ve been on YouTube for a long time you may know of their channel, RackaRacka. Even if you haven’t seen the channel you’ve probably seen clips from that Ronald McDonald video. The Australian duo are mostly known for their over-the-top videos depicting stunts, violence, and horror elements. Talk to Me is their very first feature film, centering around a group of teens and an embalmed hand that allows people to talk to the dead.

Firstly, I just want to say that the fact that a couple of YouTubers were able to make a film that got into Sundance and got picked up by A24 is absolutely incredible. You can tell in interviews how passionate these guys are and how much they understand horror, and even though I was unfamiliar with them before this film, I couldn’t be happier for them. 

But is Talk to Me any good? Well, yeah. In fact it might be the best horror movie I’ve seen this year. The film manages to feel both familiar yet fresh, taking the fairly common genre of ghosts and possession and turning it into something truly unique. Not to mention it’s fairly scary in both its atmosphere and visuals, amplified by impressive make-up, prosthetics, and sound design. This is one hell of a debut, and shows signs that modern horror may continue to be in good hands.

To briefly summarize the plot, a group of teenagers partake in a seance party game involving a creepy, embalmed hand. Once you take hold of the hand it allows you to see ghosts that you can then invite into you for a mind bending, often terrifying experience. What the teens soon come to find out is that if you let them in for too long, there’s a good chance those spirits are gonna stay.

The cast is made up of relative unknowns but across the board they all kill it. Our lead is Mia, played by Sophie Wilde, who is nothing short of phenomenal. I’m serious, this is a star making role if I’ve ever seen one. Wilde has such a presence, able to really grip you in both emotional and terrifying ways. Nearly every scene involves her and she does a fantastic job at keeping your eyes glued to what’s going on. She juggles the grief of losing a family member, the carefree attitude of being a teenager, and the absolute horror of being possessed and seeing ghosts. Another big standout for me was Joe Bird as Riley, the young brother of Mia’s best friend Jade. Without giving away spoilers, his performance goes from authentically understated to HOLY SHIT very quickly. He kind of represents that younger sibling energy of wanting to tag along with their older sibling, but then has to suffer the consequences of messing with the very adult things these kids play around with. Like I said, all of the performances are terrific, especially from the teens. It’s so refreshing to see characters who genuinely look and act their age in a film. Each one of them also does a phenomenal job flipping a switch when they become possessed, putting on some truly unsettling performances that genuinely make you fear for their souls. This authenticity not only envelopes you in a believable world, but it can also draw parallels to your own life, making you realize that something like this could easily happen to you or people you know. Not only is this film faithful to the experience of the youth, it’s also unabashedly AUSSIE. I’m glad the filmmakers were allowed to keep the dialect and accents rather than trying to Americanize it for a general US audience. We don’t really get a ton of Australian representation in movies in the states outside of parodies or satire, so it was refreshing to have this little element intact. It also makes sense considering the Australian background of the cast, which allows them to be as authentic as possible when bringing these characters to life.

The cast really sells the horror of their situation, but what kind of horror are we dealing with here? If you’re familiar with other A24 horror films (Hereditary, The Witch, Men), then you know these films tend to ditch a reliance on easy jump scares in place of an effectively built atmosphere that eventually pays off with some truly disturbing visuals. Unlike some of those aforementioned films, Talk to Me is way less of a slow burn, coming in just above 90 minutes. In those 90 minutes we are treated to some fantastic elements of horror that range from looming darkness, to startling tricks of the eyes, to gruesome bodily disfigurement. When it comes to the last bit, the makeup work here is stellar in the most gross ways possible. From the spirits to the teens that get absolutely mangled, the prosthetics and makeup do a phenomenal job at creating these very visceral images. Sometimes you get to see these ghastly visages uncut and up close, but other times you see them out of focus or obstructed by a reflection or window. I found these instances to be the most unsettling, mostly because the fear of knowing something is there but not being able to make it out clearly is sometimes far more frightening than seeing it clearly. Especially when you know these things are looking right at you, often framed in a way that feels like they’re speaking directly to you. These scenes are often expertly paced, allowing you to sit in the dread of your situation, often with no satisfying release. The similarities to films like the aforementioned Hereditary or The Babadook are apparent, opting to make this less of a haunted house ride and more of a complete package of dread and terror. The film also utilizes an effective use of sound design, sneaking in the disgusting sounds of choking or squelching that really gets under the skin. There’s also some very loud effects that honestly kind of remind of the hyperactive style of editing RackaRacka employs. Seriously, there’s a face slap in here so loud that they could probably hear it in the screening of Oppenheimer next door.

At a glance the film does feel very familiar, centering around ghosts, possessions, and teens making stupid decisions. Hell, the hand is practically a Ouija Board. But what makes this film stand out in the genre is the application of these ideas and how it relates to other aspects of being a teen. Mia is a daughter grieving, having lost her mother not too long ago. The hand gives her an opportunity not to come to terms with her sorrow and work through them, but as a manner of escapism. The film is absolutely allegorical on teen drug use, something that’s made very apparent throughout the film. The hand causes them to do crazy, embarrassing things for their peers to record, while also giving them a trippy, out of body experience. It gives the film such a unique take on the concept, because instead of everyone sitting around in the dark, holding hands surrounded by candles, they’re dancing around, drinking, hooting and hollering like it’s a party. It’s both scary yet fun to watch, which I think is pretty true to drug culture. Yet the film doesn’t forget to hang on the negatives that come with it, like peer pressure of the building of dependency. It’s such a unique idea that I think other films have tried and failed to capture, yet Talk to Me absolutely nails it. This is when horror is most effective to me; when it manages to plant a stake in reality, twisting and amplifying some of our more internal fears in a way that creatively cuts deep.

A24 and the term “elevated horror” are often closely related. If you’re unfamiliar, elevated horror is a term people use to describe horror movies, often coming out in the last decade, that tend to take a slower, more methodical approach to horror, hinging on humanity’s inner turmoil that manifests itself into something horrifying. Grief is often a huge player in these films, and it’s absolutely present in Talk to Me. Yet I’m hesitant to really call this “elevated horror”. I think it has a lot of the same aesthetics of the subgenre, but the film’s quick pacing and approachability makes it almost more akin to more conventional horror films, like the Insidious franchise. Overall I think this a great thing, as the film manages to meld these two different styles of horror into a final product that I think could satisfy many different types of horror fans. It has its deeper layers without really being a think piece, yet it can still be taken at face value and delivers a hell of a good time.

In short, there’s a ton of reasons why if you enjoy horror, you’ll most likely enjoy Talk to Me. It’s acted and directed incredibly well, peppered with both existential and physically visceral terror that is sure to get under your skin. But honestly above all else, I think you should see this movie to support a couple of talented guys who managed to make a great film outside of the conventional path. The YouTuber to filmmaker pipeline does not always work out very well, just ask Shane Dawson. So, when an actual good film manages to get made, I’d say that’s quite the achievement. It certainly gives me and assumingly other content creators hope, especially in such an uncertain time for film. 

Also, A24 is out of their mind if they don’t sell those hands. You’ve got the next generation of Ouija Boards right there.

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