On the two-year anniversary of her mother’s death, Mia (Sophie Wilde) is taken to a party by her friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen) to help get her mind off of the past.  To Jade’s dismay, her younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird), tags along, blackmailing his sister for an invite.  Once there, Hayley (Zoe Terakes) brings out – what he alleges is – the severed hand of an old psychic that allows people to communicate with lost spirits of the dead, though Jade is skeptical.  As the night wanes on, and the group becomes a little looser with the rules of the ritual, a malicious spirit visits them and refuses to leave. 

Talk to Me is the feature debut of directing pair Danny and Michael Philippou.  The film premiered at the 2022 edition of the Adelaide Film Festival in Australia and then went on to scare up audiences stateside during the 2023 edition of Sundance where it was picked up for distribution by A24.  Written by Bill Hinzman and Danny Philippou, the film is a modern twist on the Ouija board ghost stories, but fans of gore will also find some elements here that will pique their interest as it is a brutal and unrelenting tone that has become synonymous with contemporary Australian horror. 

Running a pretty lean 94 minutes, the film does take a little while to set its stage despite its shocking cold opening.  Audiences can then be forgiven for eyeing the first act with a bit of caution as it feels like Talk to Me is going to be just the latest entry into “the trauma is the monster” kind of story – and to a certain extent, it is – but what helps make the film feel unique from its contemporaries is that it is using Mia’s grief of having lost her mother to help inspire the horror instead of life in the wake of death being the horror.  To really boil it down, Talk to Me is almost a creature feature but with the extra steps of working in some of the more psychological horror elements so that it can take the best of both subgenres and makes a really captivating piece that casts a wide net when courting audiences. 

While the film primarily follows Mia, Riley takes a surprisingly large role in the story after one of these seances goes awry.  Talk to Me asks a lot from Bird and the young actor really delivers as the main vehicle for gore in the film. The scenes of violent self-harm are absolutely brutal, and Aaron McLisky’s camera does not shy from the intensity of it all, so audiences are subjected to long sequences featuring Riley bloodied and beaten to a pulp. Bird seems to really revel in the chance to perform for the cheap seats, but the performance – surely aided by Geoff Lamb’s editing – never gets so severe that we laugh to break the tension; rather the filmmaking team has led Bird right to the edge so that the performance remains horrifying and tragic the whole way through. This is aided by all the work in the first act that sets Riley up as such a small and innocent character. Sure, it is a manipulative tactic, but all effective stories are manipulative, and even for audiences who can sense the supernatural terrorism on the horizon, Bird makes it near impossible to not foster some empathy for Riley. 

Some of the logic gets a little screwy here as it seems at first that the spirit who was contacted through the hand has possessed the boy, and in a reflection of the cold open, Riley is also drawn to incredible violence.  Later, it is revealed that Riley’s spirit is being tortured by – presumably – the evil and menacing spirits of the hand; if they are demons as the frantic montage alludes to, or just vengeful spirits remains unanswered.  If there is an overarching flaw with the film, it is that the spirits that haunt the characters are ill-defined.  It is, admittedly, a nitpick, but when so much of the third act revolves around what these spirits are capable of, the screenwriters cannot expect that even audiences watching in good faith will not have some prying questions regarding the lore of the film.  Thankfully, though, the Philippou brothers and their team still spin a furiously engaging and thrilling film that will keep those pervading questions at bay long enough so that the film remains enjoyable throughout. 

What keeps us engaged is the strong performances from the entire core cast, specifically Mia as she navigates this ordeal. Wilde not only has to operate as the scream queen of the film, but also shoulders much of the emotional weight of the narrative as her friends and family begin to alienate her, and the script also demands at times a strikingly physical performance as the spirit which possesses her contorts her body into strange, rigid, and unusual positions. She forges great chemistry with the other characters, especially in a kinder big sister role toward Riley while balancing that against the best friend dynamic she has with Riley’s actual older sister, Jade. The script brings up some history between Mia and Jade’s boyfriend, Daniel (Otis Dhanji), who was alluded to have been promiscuous when he had been with Mia and now lives a more chaste life despite Jade’s advances. This relationship does come into play a little bit across the narrative’s later act, but it feels that there is more that had been left on the cutting room floor. Daniel is a calming salve to the obnoxious teenage bravado displayed by Hayley and his partner in crime, Joss (Chris Alosio). Terakes and Alosio are just playing into the roles as they were written, so it is not a knock against the actors but rather just a really grating aspect of the characterization that does create some thorniness about the film especially as it establishes itself in the first act where the duo is most prevalent. 

Talk to Me is another feather in the cap for distribution company A24 which has an affinity and proven track record for releasing unsettling, modern horror. Blending the tropes of classic ghost stories with the ferociousness expected by today’s audiences, the Philippou brothers have delivered a chilling tale that has made a connection with audiences in all the major markets since it was released. The horror genre, almost more than any other, is defined by its sound, and designer Emma Bortignon creates a perfect soundscape to accent the work of the rest of the crew and her work here really elevates the suspense and tension in every moment. The result is an unrelenting assault on audiences looking for something new and fresh in their scares. Unlike the bulk of major studio-backed horror, it is refreshingly unconnected to any overarching narrative, and therefore uninterested in, expanding its lore beyond its runtime so that it can focus fully on the story at hand.