Talk To Me Is The Horror Film Of The Year, A Must See {Review}

Posted in: A24, Horror, Movies, Review | Tagged: a24, Danny & Michael Phillippou, Talk To Me

Talk To Me is the horror event of the summer, and probably the year. This is a s good as it gets, and of course it comes to us from A24.

Talk To Me is the kind of horror film that will give you nightmares for days after you watch it. A feast for fans of the genre, it is far and away the horror event of 2023, but also just one of the best-made films of the year as well. Directors Danny & Michael Phillippou have crafted a tight, effective film that should send shockwaves through the audience as they take it all in. Once it grabs hold, it never let’s go, and the feeling of dread and terror only climbs until the ending we can all see coming, but nevertheless leaves us breathless and stunned. The best film of the year so far and is sure to be near the top of the year-end lists as well.

Talk To Me, A Classic, Hands Down

There is nothing here that reinvents the genre, far from it. It is the execution that sets it apart. The film centers around a group of friends that come into possession of a ceramic hand that you take hold of and say “Talk To Me,” which allows that person to speak to and see the dead. Trouble starts when they abuse the other phrase and allow the demons to take their bodies over for 90 seconds. During one of the sessions, Mia (a superb Sophie Wilde) is contacted by her dead mother. What unfolds from there is a terrifying trip through the psyches of these young people, all ending up at the only logical place it could.

The cast is spectacular. Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Miranda Otto, Otis Dhanji, Zoe Terakes, and Chris Alosio all shine big time. Particularly Wilde and Bird, as one, become obsessed with the rush that comes with the way the trick has her comfort her grief, and the other desperately wants to fit into disturbing and heartbreaking means. This is a star-making turn for Wilde, as her journey through the film matches our own. She is a ball of tension and nerves, and even as she travels further away from sanity, the earlier part of the film does such an excellent job of making us care for her that we couldn’t possibly feel anything but grief for what she is going through. The script does a phenomenal job building these major and minor relationships up, and every move in the second half causes us to recoil at what these characters must go through.

There is a lot here about connectivity and how we relate and share experiences with each other in this social media world, but the script is not interested in using this as a crutch. Instead, it adds to everything and makes the setting and characters relatable. It is pretty striking that the balance writers Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman (from a concept by Daley Pearson) walk that edge of making the dialogue and situations too hip but never crossing over into eye-roll territory. No, they are here to break us down, piece by piece. The more time we spend in this world, the more it becomes clear that we shouldn’t be there, just as they shouldn’t have mucked with the things that they have allowed into our world. The voyeuristic sense you feel when watching it becomes quite unnerving, and when the final act begins, it will have you squirming. A24 films should come with a warning about all of the emotions that will come pouring out of you while watching. After Hereditary, one would think that there would be nowhere left to go as far as allowing a film to try and twist the grief out of you, and then Talk To Me arrives and wrecks you all the same.

Talk To Me is the best kind of horror. The one-sentence hook, “a group of friends uses a hand to summon demons,” gets you to sit down. Then the filmmakers heap tons of heady themes and emotional baggage onto you, causing you to confront things about yourself both during and long after the film ends. Grief, forgiveness, and the parts we play in other people’s stories to sometimes devastating effect are all things that we should be wary of in our day-to-day lives, and a film like this one will smack you in the face and cause you to do just that. Not since Hereditary has a movie that caused an emotional response, and Talk To Me will be one remembered long after its run is done.

Talk To Me

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Review by Jeremy Konrad

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10/10

Talk To Me is the horror event of the summer, and the year frankly. Perfect cast, perfect script, and the kind of horror film that follows you home when you leave the theater. This is as good as it gets people.

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