Talk to Me (2022)

July 27, 2023 7:46 PM

[TRAILER] When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.

Starring Sophie Wilde, Joe Bird, Alexandra Jensen, Otis Dhanji, Miranda Otto, Zoe Terakes, Chris Alosio, Marcus Johnson, Alexandria Steffensen, Ari McCarthy, Sunny Johnson.

Directed by Michael Philippou, Danny Philippou. Written by Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman.

96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Now playing in theaters. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (8 comments total)

Quite good! This reminded me of It Follows, but not because the stories are in any similar. (They're not.) It reminded me of that film because it has a wholly original horror mythos that feels of a cloth with the classics while also feeling fresh. It was riveting and well-made enough that I scarcely thought about anything filmmaking related the entire runtime.

I just wanted to see what would happen.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:48 PM on July 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

Good lord, A24 just does not like un-traumatized heads.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 8:20 PM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Watching that next to an actual fourteen year old, I was recoiling hard. Tough watch, that scene, if you've got a kiddo of the same demo.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:00 AM on July 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Really liked this one. It takes the skeleton of a standard "teens messing with the supernatural" story and bolts onto it some extremely gruesome violence, and makes some genuinely smart and unexpected tweaks to the formula. Pretty astounding this is the directors' first feature.
posted by tomorrowromance at 11:00 AM on July 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Their background is as the people behind the YouTube channel RackaRacka, which is far enough of a generational divide away from me that I have no idea what to make of any of it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:20 AM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

This one reminded me of Hereditary. Like that movie, it’s less scary than extremely grim in its implications, with a great lead and lots and lots of grief. I love when horror movies are a little sad so this was right up my street.
posted by cakelite at 3:31 PM on July 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

I just saw this one. It's the first unifying theater I've experienced I've had since I moved to South Carolina. The couple next to me was scared enough the guy had to reassure his gf that this wasn't real and everyone was chattering very excitedly about it outside of the theater. It was definitely a helluva ride. It's not often I wonder if a movie might be too much for me, but this one definitely really pushed me to the limit. I don't even have a child, and I was really devastated by those scenes. I didn't realize until after the first scene was over I had one hand over my mouth, and the hand clenched in a raised fist over my chest. I was NOT expecting that.

Part of what I like about this movie is managed to do what Hereditary did which is fuse those visceral scares with psychological subtext. When Jade makes the comment that she wishes Mia had never clawed her way into the family (I forgot the actual wording) it reminded me of the brutality of when Toni Colette's character says to her son she wishes he had never been born. That this hand brings all these tensions to the surface-like the jealous about the bf, Mia's mother's suicide, and the possibility of Mia losing her mind rather than this being a supernatural menace-or a combination of the two. In the end, we don't really know what is real and what is not-which puts us on similar footing to Mia. Like when we see Riley healed leaving with him family, does that actually happen? I mean I hope so, but it's hard to imagine.

Basically don't do creepy rituals with the dead for funsies people.
posted by miss-lapin at 7:53 PM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I did think the happy family was real, or at least as real as Eowyn telling Mia that she realizes it's not drugs and that she's family. I suppose that could have been fake too, but it seemed like the mom really was at the hospital and chill with Mia being alone with Riley.

She does see Riley leaving the hospital with the family and it FEELS fake, but she was experiencing messed up dream world time probably. Or everything in controlled by or some projection of horror.

I wish there'd been more to it. The moment one of the hand-bros dropped a line like, "He said it could imitate people" I was like, welp okay, and I felt it was all pretty straightforward from there.

But it felt pretty competently put together, and I think the beginning parts with the family were fairly deft.. The feeling of there just not being enough love to go around in the family.. The fault lines visible. That was all very good.

My SO says she was disappointed and that she likes it "when the heroine figures stuff out and is competent" and yeahhhh welllllllllllllllll
posted by fleacircus at 11:00 PM on October 7, 2023