Talk to me came out in 2022 to pretty good reviews. It shook the horror world.
While I couldn’t catch it in the theaters, I saw Bring Her Back before this one and knew exactly what kind of gut punch the Philippou brothers were capable of.
I don’t know who hurt them : but it must’ve cut deep for them to inflict so much trauma onto their audiences.
A new elevated piece ?
Much like Laura, Mia is a victim of grief, turning her into the worst kind of people, dragging everyone down along with her. In her defense though, she’s been dealt a pretty rough hand, and is still young. She’s not as evil as Laura was.
While it is mainly straight up horror, it could fit in the elevated category, as the peer pressure and possession could easily represent drug use amongst teenagers, and the dire consequences that follow.
Video taping everything to use it for bullying, everyone wanting to fit in and try, and the addiction of it all, leaving behind only trauma and death.
The premise is quite simple : a ceramic hand, which may or may not contain the hand of a medium -or a devil worshipper- is used in seances with very strict rules.
It falls into the hands of teenagers and gets endlessly used until the wrong person comes along and breaks said rules, allowing the spirits to take possession of the body and mind of some of the participants.
I’m not going to lie, I love the idea behind it.
Of course teenagers would do that for the rush, never considering the consequences.
Of course the spirits would lie and abuse the connection.
Of course the youngest and the most broken among us would fall victims first….
It makes the entire movie all the more believable.
Oh, and the dog lives, so they get huge bonus points there.
Legends, dumbasses, and death.
The first seance already breaks one of the rules, possessing Mia, our protagonist, for 4 extra seconds.
During that one, the spirits seem to already be fond of Riley, Mia’s best friend’s brother, who acts almost like her own brother sometimes.
As Mia lost her mother to suicide 2 years prior, she values him dearly, and the hand knows how to break someone’s spirit.
So of course, as he wants to try it later on, she agrees, despite his sister refusing him going anywhere near the hand.
It’s the annoying little brother that wants to try a beer scenario, but with demonic entities involved.
That’s where the manipulation begins, as they pretend to be Mia’s mother, so she would break the 90-second rule.
The consequences are immediate.
And this is where I gotta ask : do we need to dig into the Philippou brothers’ past ?
What is it with their passion to destroy young boys’ bodies ? Riley, and then Oli in Bring Her Back.
Has this become their signature move ?
If you’re a young boy cast in one of their movies, be prepared for hours in the prosthetics chair and therapy sessions, I guess.
Anyhoo, Riley’s possessed body goes through a lot, and he almost dies in the process, all because of Mia.
He ends up in the hospital, and tries to kill himself whenever he comes to, until he ends up in a coma.
Mia feels guilty and tries her best to get him out of it.. She gets session after session with the hand, and gets haunted by a lot of the spirits whether she is near it or not. They alter her reality little by little, clinging onto her desire to belong with anyone, and pulling her away from everyone in the process.
She’s not a good person by any means, trying to get closer to her best friend’s boyfriend for example, but she is lost enough that you feel bad for her despite her mistakes.
She’s young, she’s damaged, but she’s trying.
Here the allegory for drugs comes back, as one of the survivors of the hand states that you just need to drop it for it to go away… The less you use it, the less power the spirits have over you.
But, for broken people, it’s easier said than done.
Overall it’s a deep dive into grief, and the turmoil your own brain gets into once reality hits.
Some people get over it painfully with time, while others just don’t.
A passion for body horror
The Philippou brothers really have a knack for punching holes in your heart with their movies. It’s not an enjoyable experience, but it’s as real -within the horror genre- as it gets.
The ending is… just brutal. Mia tried to kill Riley to put him out of his misery, being guided by the spirits along the way. She doesn’t end up pushing him into oncoming traffic but gets hit herself. We then follow her as she sees the family exiting the hospital, then everything goes dark until a hand reaches out in the darkness.
She grabs it, and realizes that she’s one of the long lost spirits getting connected through the seance.
The people speak another language, so the hand is no longer in Australia.
There is no way to know how long her spirit has spent in that darkness.
And then… the end.
If you were looking for a happy ending taking pity on a teenage girl, you were in the wrong place.
There were no final girls here and it was magnificent.
My rating : 5/5 bats
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