By Eli LaChance
Every good deal begins with a handshake. Talk to Me, the new A24 distributed indie from the land down under, seeks to provide gothic horror for the 21st century. And while the first act mostly delivers on the marketing promise, we don’t spend long in the film’s clutches before it becomes clear that YouTube’s RackaRacka creators turned directors, Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, are working with a more timeless metaphor.
The film opens with a violent, jaw dropping assault so disturbing it’s nothing short of miraculous that not 15 minutes later, the film will have you laughing and having fun. But it isn’t all a blast, the tonal tight rope gives in places, offering brief reminders that what you are watching is not safe, this is a horror movie afterall. Once the film violently turns into its second act, there is no security and comic relief is hard to come by.
Sophie Wilde is undeniably a new star, serving as the emotional center of this piece she’s given the opportunity to show her range in full. She plays Mia, an alienated teen having trouble connecting with people after the death of her mother. She’s sort of an unofficial adoptee of her best friend’s family whose house she seldom leaves. Alexandra Jensen plays the aforementioned friend, Jade, and the pair are well matched, but it’s with Jay’s younger brother Riley, played by Joe Bird, that the chemistry really becomes delectable as Mia is the playful but well intentioned teenaged bad influence on the innocent kid brother.
Drawn in by a viral video, the kids sneak out to a party where the core rules of the supernatural element are established. A sculpted, graffitied hand of unknown origin is used to make contact with the dead simply by holding it and uttering the titular phrase. The user may invite the deceased into their body, but only in 90-second increments lest they end up trapped. As the first act plays out, the kids find themselves hooked by the adrenaline of the game and things quickly and gruesomely begin to spiral from there. Miranda Otto of Return of the King fame is still no man, but in Talk to Me she delivers the best horror movie mom since Dee Wallace, her snark and wit as she attempts to impose some order over these lying teens are a heartwarming grounding element in an otherwise chaotic supernatural ride.
The family and friendship dynamics are part of what make this work so well, we’re dealing with pitch black subject matter but these characters are allowed to be more than manifestations of pain and trauma, they get to be playful kids if only for a short time but it’s enough to stave off the emotional flatline similar works fall into. It’s a human story first.
When Talk to Me is at its best, the RackaRacka brothers draw you into a false sense of security before pulling the rug out. Even when the rules are firmly established, they find clever ways to flip them on the viewer and break the boundaries we depend on. The marketing promises cellphones galore but outside of providing the initial lure, they’re graciously not present after the first act. I’m not sure how patient Gen Z or older Millennials would be for another cellphones/social media equals bad story.
What I found not so buried under all the supernatural ghosts and demons is a story about the horror and isolation of addiction and how that cycle starts with pain and can self-perpetuate by further isolating its victim with shame. The filmmakers waste no time equating the ceramic, or embalmed, hand’s power with a drug. It all starts with peer pressure and laughs, users feel a kind of high, their pupils dilate, embarrassing behavior ensues, and even after someone gets hurt, users keep finding reasons to go back hoping for answers or just to make their loneliness go away; but that magic is gone and what remains will destroy you. The whole thing has to start with a handshake, like a deal. Still, there are many types of addiction, and like the horrors viewed from social media, it requires the user to let them in.
Talk to Me is brutal teen horror, transgressive, familiar, and well paced. While none of its parts are particularly fresh, the sum is a whole new beast. This has the potential to be one of those genre defining hits that will be felt for decades. What’s so refreshing is how unabashedly Talk to Me embraces genre, and how expertly the material is handled. The RackaRacka crew aren’t trying to elevate anything here because they love and believe in the power of horror films as an art form. And to that I say, hell yeah.
Post script; in light of current events, a film like this reminds us how instrumental writers and actors are in making this industry what it is today and how valuable their work is. Quality media isn’t something shareholders are good at snuffing out. If they want good content, they need good writers and they need to pay them. Independent productions like this show us that quality cinema is made when the actual creators and the artistic work are more important than shareholders. It’s a relief there’s such a great option coming to the multiplex that doesn’t involve a struck AMPTP company.
Review by Eli LaChance
Channel 31 
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