Talk to Me is a merciless, terrifying debut from RackaRacka’s Danny and Michael Philippou

Talk to Me. // Courtesy A24

In all of horror, there may be no trope so beloved as “teens fuck around and find out.”

Unprepared kids encountering the supernatural has generated enduring classics like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, the Final Destination series and David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows. It’s telling that most of these movies are franchises. Where one group of pubescent almost-adults loose unthinkable terror on their friends and loved ones, others are sure to follow.

Danny and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me feels tailor-made to develop into A24’s next great horror series. It’s an easy title to sequel-ize, for one thing (consider: Talk 2 Me, Talk to M3, T4lk to Me). The concept—a group of bored kids holds TikTok-able séances using a creepy embalmed hand until a session goes horribly wrong—is easily replicable. Just toss the cursed MacGuffin to a new owner in a subsequent entry, rinse and repeat.

Beyond the marketing potential, however, Talk to Me is also merciless, squeal-inducing horror featuring star-making performances from its young cast. As popular YouTubers, the Philippous understand how to quickly grab and keep an audience’s interest. As filmmakers, they haven’t yet learned the art of a satisfying conclusion.

However, the talent on display still makes it clear Talk to Me is just the start for this ambitious duo.

Mia (Sophie Wilde) and her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) are “good girls” whose wholesome reputation is stunting their popularity at school. Mia wants to attend a party where edgy cool kids Hayley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss (Chris Alosio) use an embalmed hand to perform a séance where a volunteer lets a ghost briefly inhabit their body (the going trend is to film a spirit making its host do outrageous things, then share the session online). Mia wants to use the hand to contact her dead mother. After much cajoling, Jade finally relents.

Mia’s initial run with the hand leaves her euphoric. Things go wrong, however, when the gang tries to repeat the experience at Jade’s house, and Jade’s little brother Riley (Joe Bird) gets involved. Hayley and Joss let the possession go on too long, and before they can stop him, Riley grievously injures himself. As Riley lays in the hospital and Mia is cast out by Jade and her mother (Miranda Otto), Mia tries to find a way to exorcize the ghost still inhabiting Riley’s body and learn the truth of her mother’s death in the process.

While Talk to Me’s plot points aren’t surprising (you’ll probably be able to see the ending coming a good ten minutes before it does), the Philippous have an admirable commitment to gore that gives its thrills extra impact. It’s not often I look away during a good scare, but Talk to Me has visceral moments that rival Evil Dead in their icky intensity (if you’re squeamish about eyeball trauma, sorry in advance).

There’s an additional boost from the movie’s persistent sense of dread which, like It Follows, leaves you in a perpetual state of tension, waiting for the next disaster to happen.

With her spiky hair, big eyes and high, raspy voice, Wilde is a perfect fit as Mia, a role that requires extreme vulnerability, dissociation and startling physicality. She proves more than adept at all three. Terakes radiates believable false bravado and shit-stirring agitator energy as the androgynous Hayley, creating a familiar, fascinating character the Philippous’ camera can’t help but be drawn to. 

Talk to Me gets dinged a little by an abrupt, shaky dismount that feels like the filmmakers simply got impatient. However, the film’s closing shot is a sickly fun departing gut-punch, and even if things feel dropped in the final act, the Philippous should be commended for not trying to pack too much in at the last second.

Ultimately, it’s an issue that only takes Talk to Me down from “great” to “very good,” which is reason enough to recommend you see it in a theater with a crowd.