Talk To Me Review
Theatrical Movie Review - Horror
The first horror movie I ever saw was the 1976 version of “The Omen.” It terrified me for days and is probably why I love both horror movies in general and evil spirit-type horror specifically. It also means that I am always chasing the level of terror I had watching that movie. When A24, an independent studio that has been able to meet all of the strike demands of both WGA and SAG-AFTRA, released the trailer for “Talk to Me,” directed by YouTube creators Danny and Michael Philippou, it looked like it might fit the bill.
It has been two years since Mia (Sophie Wilde) lost her mother. She has struggled to connect with her father, instead spending most of her time with her friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), Jade’s brother Riley (Joe Bird), and their mother, Sue (Miranda Otto). Jade and her boyfriend Daniel (Otis Dhanji) invite Mia to a party where kids have been using a special hand to contact the dead. Participants invite the spirit to possess them for 90 seconds, then they must let go. But when Mia is contacted by her mother, she puts everyone at risk.
This movie had me in a state of dread almost the entire run time, which was exactly what I was looking for. While it has some moments of sudden and disturbing violence right from the beginning, the majority of what drives the terror is simply an intense story mixed with an unreliable narrator that leaves you on edge for the entire viewing.
The performance from this young cast are all fantastic. Wilde gives a genuinely powerful showing, but everyone matches her throughout. They managed to blend the feeling of controlled chaos that exists in any high school party with what happens when that chaos spins out of control. Nothing was overwrought, it was just the right amount of panic and blame shifting. The scene where Mia and Riley are singing Sia’s “Chandelier” in the car is one that will play in my head for a while.
The story itself was a genuinely unique take on the possession sort of horror film. Certainly it uses a lot of the same visuals that one expects from that genre, but they are put together in unexpected ways. I loved the way that we were never quite sure where things were headed or who we could trust. That simplicity, as much as the violence, was what had my eyes glued to the screen.
Horror as a genre doesn’t get a lot of love. It’s often seen as crass or low-brow, and honestly, sometimes that is correct. But when it’s at its best, horror will teach us something about ourselves or the world that we inhabit. One of my all-time favorite movies, “Hereditary,” examines grief from the perspective of adults, and now “Talk to Me” looks at it from an adolescent point of view. Both warn against numbing or avoiding grief in their stories. Also, they warn against summoning demons. Probably all good advice.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on July 30, 2023.