Review: Talk To Me

Talk To Me
(Structural spoilers)
Cert: 15 / 95 mins / Dir. Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou / Trailer

Reeling from the recent death of her mother, suburban Australian teenager Mia (Sophie Wilde) attends a party with her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) where a seance-type game is being played. A curious ornament of an embalmed, outstretched hand is used as a bridge between the land of the living and the tormented souls of the dead in limbo. The subject who grasps the hand and recites a mantra is then possessed by whichever spirit answered the call, while friends in the room run a timer and break the connection by blowing out the candle before the player is lost completely.

But when Jade's little brother Riley (Joe Bird) persuades the group to let him try, the combination of his youth and a particularly malevolent visitor result in the boy being catatonically hospitalised. Blaming herself, Mia resolves to rescue Riley from wherever his essence is being held, as well finding time to battle her own demons...

PHYSICAL

So, the Philippou brothers' film is, in a very real sense, a ouija-movie. The setup of bored teenagers using a physical artifact to channel the netherworld and then realising they've bitten off more than they can chew and spending the next 80 minutes trying not to go mad or die is a tried and tested formula. Long-time readers of this blog will know my patience with this sort of thing is usually wafer-thin at best.

Talk To Me, however is different. It's different in that it's pretty marvellous, and that's entirely because of how it handles its premise, rather than the premise itself.

A measured first act teases the results of a previous group messing about with The Hand, before taking the time to build up the characters of Mia and Jade. Neither are presented as bratty, conceited or unusually damaged (do remember these are teenage girl protagonists in a horror movie), and we get enough background information that it while may seem unusual for them to be diving into a seance, it doesn't feel unexpected.

ROCKED

But it's at the point of the first ritual that the film starts carving its own path. The teenagers in the room aren't surprised when contact is made with the other-side. The 'things' that the subject sees are visible only to that person; to everyone else it looks as if they're just hallucinating. But several of the kids have seen this before. Indeed, they've done this before; that's the game. This isn't a group of giggling children pushing a glass around a table, it's a quantifiable experience that can't be faked - and it's treated here as a drug as they take it in turns, filmed by everyone around them on their phones*¹ and enjoyed by all. Because as terrified as each of them are when they're 'under', they return energised and wanting to do it again.

More importantly though, this isn't a film about meddling with the occult. Horror works best as metaphor, and Talk To Me is a study of grief, guilt and mental illness, which isn't altogether unusual for the genre. It is more, however, a surprisingly thoughtful muse on the boundaries of consent and where they intersect with responsibility. The film never asks these questions explicitly and it certainly doesn't offer easy answers, but to even raise this in such an under-the-radar way is a smart move, and one which should be lauded.

We see it play out many times. Once the game's participant is safely strapped to a chair (torso only) and the candle is lit, it's that person who has to reach out and grasp The Hand. It's that person who has to utter the words "talk to me". And after the immediate sight of a decomposing corpse in front of them, it's that person who then has to literally say "I let you in". After this point the dead person takes control of their body (hence the strap), and will remain in place until the candle is extinguished. The subject is fully inhabited by the dead at the absolute mercy of their friends, and they've been a willing player in this game of this from the off. They're reliant on those friends having also experienced this first-hand, and understanding the gravity of the situation amid the 'fun'. So who's to blame when the genie doesn't want to go back in the bottle?

While the already-mythologised origin of The Hand is discussed at one point, there's no second-act scene in a dusty hospital archive where Captain Exposition conveniently reels off a backstory. Likewise, destroying The Hand to magically undo its deeds is never mooted as an option, with Mia actually bringing a cause-and-effect approach to studying its mechanics instead. Although by a certain point in the film it becomes clear that the only light at the end of the tunnel might in fact be its own dark place...

READYTORHUMBLE

Talk To Me is different enough in its detail to set it aside from the standard posession-horror flick, but is rooted firmly enough in the social tradition of those to ensure that points of familiarity strike home. There are a smattering of jump-scares but the film certainly doesn't rely on them, infusing the audience instead with a sense of dread and sadness.

The main selling point though, is the superb work of the huge make-up and prosthetics team, and a host of excellent dramatic performances from the cast (especially Sophie Wilde), rather than the players defaulting to 'horror movie shriek-mode'. And ultimately, this also comes down to the deft writing of Bill Hinzman and Daley Pearson, and the focused direction of Michael and Danny Philippou, who've shown that not only can they play with the big boys - they understand the game far more intimately*².

Talk To Me is a very neat little genre movie that's not going to change the world, but is punching well above its weight in an overcrowded fight. I don't need to see sequels (that ending is perfect as it is, thank you), or spin-offs or half a dozen Blumhouse efforts trying to emulate everything this does right, although I suspect all that's coming down the line anyway...

*¹ Okay, so when exactly is this movie set, that the characters have shiny new iPhones and MacBooks, but Jade's still got the Crazy Frog as a ringtone? Is somebody looking after Australia..? ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Which is something of a surprise, because prior to the film there was a short welcome-reel featuring the Philippou brothers and quite frankly they come off like an absolute ADHD nightmare. This was part of Cineworld's Secret Screening programme, incidentally, and between the BBFC card and ten minutes into the movie I counted 19 walkouts. Which is entirely fair enough. There are many people who just don't do horror (there can't be any other mainstream genre so culturally divisive), so getting people out of the house for a mystery movie and then springing something you know for a fact that a few of them will hate seems like an odd move. Because those 19 people won't be coming to the next one. It's also worth noting that the Secret Screenings are no longer exclusive to Unlimited card-holders, so potentially some of those walkouts had actually paid specifically to be there. I hope they got a refund... ^{[ BACK ]}

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