Talk to Me is a little film that could. It was a low-budget film made with young actors and directed by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, two successful online influencers who had never directed a full-length movie. Despite this being their first major film attempt, Talk to Me got the attention of many and garnered a great deal of praise at film festivals and in online reviews. Can something with so much praise behind it live up to the hype?

Pros

Creepy and shocking moments throughout
Solid acting from the mostly unknown cast
Decent pacing
Only around 90 minutes long

Cons

A lot of the consequences are the result of extremely foolish actions
Attempts at sympathy for the protagonist do not land
Somewhat predictable or formulaic plot

Plot & Thoughts

For every generation, there are phases of popular activities for teenagers to partake in at parties. For some, it’s drugs and alcohol. For others, it’s spin the bottle or board games. In Talk to Me, it’s communing with the dead via a haunted ceramic hand. Viral videos are circulating of teenagers at parties getting possessed when they hold this mysterious hand and perform a basic ritual, and Mia (Sophie Wilde) wants to try it for herself. Mia, a young girl whose mother died last year, has a strained relationship with her father and prefers to spend her nights at the house of her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen).

One night, Mia, Jade, and Jade’s younger brother Riley (Joe Bird) end up at a party with the haunted hand on display. Mia volunteers to try the hand and performs the ritual that lets her see and eventually become possessed by dead spirits. Everyone at the party is either entertained or frightened by her actions while the ghost is inside her, but the group of kids acting as caretakers of the hand fail to separate the hand from Mia’s possessed grip before the time limit of 2 minutes expires. It seems like there are no lingering ill effects at first. In fact, Mia is enjoying an adrenaline rush when it’s all over, as though she just bungee jumped. However, it becomes very apparent that the hand is no toy at the next party when one possession goes too far, one of the kids gets severely injured while possessed, and the spirit does not leave as expected. It quickly becomes a problem that the kids have to solve as Mia starts to lose her grip on reality.

Talk to Me has some decent moments with impressive makeup effects and creepy imagery. The acting of the mostly unknown actors is all very convincing. The direction is stylish and snappy. The final scene has several appropriate moments that wrap up the story in a nice, horrific bow. There are plenty of things to like about it, and I think it’s an impressive film for its rather small budget. However, when everything ended and the credits rolled, I had mixed feelings.

Those mixed feelings are mostly centered around Mia. The actor does a good job playing her, and the setup and payoff for the character work well. I take issue with her in the moments when the movie makes attempts to show empathy towards her. Mia is a very unsympathetic protagonist. She’s naive as you would expect of a teenager, but what takes her over the edge into being dislikable are the various narcissistic choices she makes throughout the film. One or two of these decisions wouldn’t make her anything more than just a dumb teenager, but she keeps making mistakes and expecting others to just forgive her failures. Her behavior reminded me of other covert narcissists I’ve met who try to appeal to the sympathy in people as a method of manipulation, regardless of whether they are aware that they’re doing it. What I’m getting at is that I have my own anecdotal bias against Mia, but where I take issue with Talk to Me are the moments in which it tries to make me feel bad for her, which I don’t. I’m not sure if the intention of the film was to make me empathize with her or hate her, but I definitely came away strongly disliking Mia.

When it’s all said and done, Talk to Me has decent pacing to move everything along quickly, and the movie is over before you know it. Despite the positives I mentioned earlier, I didn’t necessarily feel like it was doing anything new, except for making the process of possession a fad for teenagers to try at parties. All the other story beats felt really familiar and rather predictable. Still, even if the story was predictable, I cannot say the movie stumbled in its delivery.

TL;DR

Talk to Me has plenty of traits worth praising. The young, unknown cast does a great job of acting and gives convincing performances. There are some creepy moments and imagery with the addition of simple but effective makeup effects. It’s got solid pacing and keeps everything under two hours. I may have a personal bias against the movie’s protagonist and the occasional attempts at empathy for her, but the pros outweigh the cons. If you want a straightforward horror movie to fill 90 minutes of your time, Talk to Me is worth a watch.

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