Talk To Me (2023) – Give Them A Hand

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 27th July
Seen: 5th August

It’s a sad truth that Australian cinema isn’t as popular as it used to be. Sure we had our heyday with films like Priscilla, Strictly Ballroom and Razorback but lately it feels like we’re mostly just a cheap backlot for American films with very few serious hits of our own. So when an Australian film not only manages to score a great opening week at the box office (especially against juggernauts like Barbie) but gets rave reviews that’s cause for celebration, especially because Talk To Me manages to live up to the insane hype that surrounds it.

Talk To Me starts like a lot of bad stories in Australia start, at a large party being thrown at someone’s house where everyone is about 3 beers down within the first 30 minutes. At this party is 17-year-old Mia (Sophie Wilde) who is trying to distract herself on the anniversary of her mum’s suicide so naturally she’s dragged her good friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Jade’s little brother Riley (Joe Bird) to join her.

At this party, one of the people pulls out what looks like a small plasticine hand and a party game begins, a game where you are strapped to a chair and hold the hand before saying “Talk to me”. This opens up a door to the other side and allows you to talk to the dead… but also allows the dead to talk to you, something that will end up opening some deep psychological wounds for Mia and put her and her friends in serious danger.

From the moment Talk To Me opens with a brilliant and intense long take through a rampaging party until the second the credits start rolling, Talk To Me is almost upsettingly good. For first-time feature filmmakers, the directing pair of Danny & Michael Philippou has no right being this good at building tension and getting the audience to jump into the seat behind them every few minutes. There’s a confidence behind the camera that you can just feel, someone clearly and decisively leading you through this terrifying story that knows just what to show you in order to get the desired effect from the audience who will not know what’s coming at any point. 

While some elements of Talk To Me feel like something you’d get in a standard possession movie (the slamming doors, the weird creature in the corner of the room, a strange reflection of someone who isn’t there), they’re arranged in a way that’s absolutely not standard and keeps you on your toes. The familiar stuff lulls the audience in so they can trust the filmmaker, only for this rascally pair of brothers to scream “FUCK YOU” before delivering sharp left turns that throw the audience for a glorious loop. The scares range from expected but well-executed to surprising and downright horrifying and every single one of them is brutally effective.

Part of why Talk To Me might’ve been so effective, at least to this reviewer, is that the uniquely Australian feel of the movie makes it incredibly relatable. I’m sure many other Aussies have had the experience of going to one of those parties where everyone’s a little drunk before even turning up, the music’s going and then a couple of people pull out some weird supernatural shit (at the parties I went to it was a makeshift Ouija board made from a shot glass and some pieces of paper) and the party gets way too intense. It’s something weirdly familiar that takes that and turns it up to 15 and makes for an intense time.

Underneath the fun, scares and shocks there’s also a pretty great set of metaphors going on. Using a horror film to touch on topics like grief, mental health and even drugs is a great way to root your horror film in something real and Talk To Me does that with great conviction. The possession party scenes are played like a drug party binge where everyone’s taking hits off the demonic hand-shaped bong, while some of the more intense scenes of violence play like anti-meth PSA. It gives Talk To Me a hint of realism to slide in underneath the story of a hand that allows you to talk to the dead, which helps you buy into the horror and makes it even more impactful than it already is.

Every element of the story and visuals is working hard to scare the audience, but all of it is made even more powerful by a fabulous cast led by Sophie Wilde who really gives an all-time great horror performance, showing the mental deterioration of her character with such a raw vulnerability that it’s honestly kind of confronting at times. Everyone else in Talk To Me really is doing great work (bonus shoutout to Miranda Otto who only has a few scenes but is delightful in all of them) but the film belongs to Sophie and she makes damn sure the audience feels every emotion possible. It’s one of those horror performances that’s so good that it would probably be talked about at awards season if the people handing out those awards paid attention to this genre, hopefully it’ll at least get Sophie some attention from people who can keep her on our screens for a damn long time.

Talk to Me not only manages to match the hype surrounding it but it exceeds it, in the process hopefully launching the careers of the people making it and its talented cast into the stratosphere. It’s terrifying, uniquely Aussie and completely captivating. It’s the kind of film that’s going to be put on lists of greatest horror films that have come out of Australia this century and it absolutely deserves that kind of praise. You gotta hand it to the people who made this, they knew what they were doing and they did it bloody brilliantly.