Review: Talk To Me

Image courtesy of A24.

Whether it's higher-brow fare like Ari Aster's work - "Hereditary" and "Midsommar" - or a run-of-the-mill Stephen King adaptation like "The Boogeyman," grief has become the new gateway to terror in modern horror movies. The Australian film "Talk to Me" is the latest to take up this trend and the film, for the most part, delivers on both the grief and the scares.

The film opens with a memorable house party in which a guy tries to get his brother - who is seemingly in an odd state of mind - out of his bedroom, only to have all hell break loose. We then meet the central group of friends on which the action primarily focuses - Mia (Sophie Wilde), who is suffering the loss of her mother to apparent suicide; Jade (Alexandra Jensen), Mia's best friend; Riley (Joe Bird), Jade's younger brother who looks up to Mia; Daniel (Otis Dhanji), a former flame of Mia who is currently dating Jade and is apparently religious; and Hayley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss (Chris Alosio), who initiate the others into the dangerous game that is at the film's center.

That game involves gripping what is apparently the severed, embalmed hand of a powerful medium and saying "talk to me." Once a spirit appears, the person holding the hand must say "I let you in," and the spirit takes over their body. The catch is that the person must release their grip from the hand within 90 seconds or the spirit might decide to stay.

The first time that Mia takes part in this, she is captivated - but then becomes convinced that she can communicate with her dead mother, which becomes a problem when you're only supposed to stay in the spirit's grasp for 90 seconds. Naturally, this whole scenario goes south when one of the characters is under the spell for too long - and that particular character suffers some particularly gruesome punishment as a result.

In the days to come, Mia claims to still be tormented by the presence and the character injured at the party - now in the hospital - continually tries to cause bodily damage due to the spirit's ongoing presence. The other characters do not experience what Mia is seeing and, therefore, become a little wary of her presence.

"Talk to Me" has an impressively creepy vibe, although some of the jump scares feel like the type you'd expect in lesser movies. Much like the masterful "It Follows," the film - which is the directorial debut of brothers Michael and Danny Philippou - has a vibe of ever-present dread that goes a long way toward creating atmosphere, and the performances are all good, Wilde especially.

Perhaps, I wasn't quite as enamored with "Talk to Me" as some other critics. I thought it was solid, but those comparing it to "It Follows" or some of the other great horror movies of recent years - I'd include "The Witch," "Hereditary," "X," "Watcher," and "The Black Phone" in that company - are maybe overselling it a little. It's definitely an effective, well made, and mostly enjoyable horror picture, but I see it more as a good jumping off point for its creators, rather than a new genre classic. Regardless, it's worth a watch.