Talk To Me (2023)

I cannot help being wary every time a new horror movie comes out to great acclaim from both critics and fans alike. The fact that Talk To Me is directed by a pair of brothers who made their name making numerous YouTube shorts also had me wondering if it could be as good as the praise it was getting would suggest. It is. Talk To Me is probably one of the best original horror movies of the last decade, and a fantastic debut from two talented individuals I may now start having to explore on YouTube (where they have their RackaRacka channel). Interviews with them suggest they have always used the platform with a view to moving to features one day, and not to simply become internet celebrities, as I had, perhaps slightly snobbishly, assumed.

Mia (Sophie Wilde) still seems in a period of grieving for her dead mother. It has been two years, the death was an apparent suicide, but it still feels like an open wound. She doesn’t really feel connected to her father (Max, played by Marcus Johnson) any more, but she has a surrogate family unit in the form of her friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), Jade’s younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird), and their mother, Sue (Miranda Otto). When they find out about a new “party trick”, involving holding on to a ceramic/embalmed hand that allows you to speak to, and be temporarily possessed by, the dead, Mia, Jade, and Riley end up curious. Not sure if it is even real, they soon find out that it is. And it can turn into something addictive and dangerous.

Based on a concept by Daley Pearson, Talk To Me is written by Bill Hinzman and Danny Philippou (the latter also sharing directing duties with his brother, Michael Philippou), and it is a very smart update of traditional horror movie ideas without ever coming across as too annoying or “too cool for school”. It has some great commentary layered throughout almost every scene (whether it’s about grief, addiction, or those who will endanger themselves while having their actions filmed and/or live-streamed on mobile phones) and there’s a depth and heart to the material that keeps you rooting for certain characters even as you see them heading towards what is most certainly a cliff edge at the end of their brief lifespan.

The Philippou brothers have helped themselves enormously with some great casting. Wilde is brilliant in the lead role, and it is a difficult one that needs viewers to sympathize with her as she starts to slide inexorably down an ever-darkening path. She is convincingly warm and lovely when we first get to see her in the company of her good friends, but also sad and vulnerable in a way that is exploited by certain malevolent forces. Jensen is also very good, a believable friend who has her patience tested, to say the least, when things start to go from bad to worse, and Bird is sweet and believable in a way that makes his own journey even more painful and difficult to watch than it otherwise would be. Otto is a great movie mum, delivering at least one line that should produce a solid laugh from most viewers, and Otis Dhanji does well as his character, Daniel, floats in and out of the proceedings just enough to stay involved, and provide some extra tension between our two central females. Johnson doesn’t get too much to do, but he does everything well enough, and Alexandria Steffensen veers between caring a creepy in her small, but pivotal, role. 

Although the emphasis is on an enjoyably creepy atmosphere and characters being scared by a growing inability to rely on their own senses, Talk To Me also has one or two moments of stomach-churning brutality. It is a dark and disturbing film, but one that is made by people who know how to keep the tone well-balanced throughout and keep it as something palatable to mainstream audiences. That is reflected in the success it has already had.

A front-running contender for horror film of the year, and one I can’t envision being beaten by anything in the near future, Talk To Me is a hell of a wild ride, and one hell of a feature directorial debut. Near-perfect.

9/10

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