When it comes to using gimmicks, horror flicks do it best. It’s the genre most receptive to one’s wildest ‘what if’ ideas. Talk to Me, the debut feature from filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou, has a great gimmick. It’s a funhouse treat, even.
In Talk to Me there is a talisman. In this case, a hand cut from the corpse of a spirit medium, preserved, and coated with plaster. It still holds power, though. Should someone grasp the hand and say, “Talk to me,” a ghost will appear before them, ready to have a conversation. Should the person say, “I let you in,” then the ghost possesses the person’s body and communicates through them. Should the possession last longer than ninety seconds, the possessee risks getting kicked out of their own body, and sent to whatever nightmare limbo these spirits came from, toy to their every whim and evil intent. The hand, then, is a dangerous object, and one to be used with care by people who understand the risks. That’s also what makes it an awesome teenage party game!
Sophie Wilde stars as Mia, a high school student in Adelaide, South Australia, who is struggling with the death of her mother. She has a close friendship with Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and her younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird), to the point of almost being family. There’s a social media phenomenon taking over their school. Someone got ahold of the hand, and has been hosting parties where teens take turns letting spirits in. 
Hesitant at first, Mia decides to give it a go because she’s been feeling like an outcast of late. She loves it, and convinces Jade to host a small get together at her house one night.
All goes well until the older teens decide to let Riley have a go. When he lets a spirit in, it appears to be Mia’s mother. Desperate for some closure, Mia doesn’t let Riley tap out, and he goes longer than ninety seconds under possession. He suffers gruesome injuries, ends up in the hospital, and is not really in there in the moments he’s awake.
Mia suffers enormous guilt. Worse, she begins seeing ghosts even while she isn’t holding the dead guy’s hand. She feels she has to save Riley from wherever he is, while also navigating spirit encounters that are as much hallucination as contact with the other side. Her situation just keeps getting worse, and worse, and worse, until saving Riley becomes an all or nothing proposition.
As with much horror of late, unresolved trauma is the main motivating factor of the protagonist. At first Mia is seeking escape, but when the possibility of answers instead presents itself, she goes all-in on self-destructive behavior. Like many people in a spiral, she doesn’t realize she’s in one until a fateful moment of clarity.
We horror movie uncs, the ones with glacial amounts of time spent watching scary movies, are hard to frighten. We’ve resigned ourselves to fear no longer being a regular part of our viewing experience. This flick gave me the willies. I’m telling you, that desert was wide and dry, and then Mia grabs that hand for the first time. Just the unholy amount of irresponsible behavior on the part of these teenagers was enough to make my back seize up. The behavior of the dead and the gross makeup effects enhance the fright, too. The CGI use is restrained. Viewers can tell easily that these are not spirits that can be trusted, and it’s a bad, bad idea to mess about with them.
Talk to Me induces dread and fear in a fine balance, and doesn’t really let go until the climax, when the Brothers Philippou set up only one possible ending. Before that, they hold back on overused tropes, and most criticisms of the gimmick I could think of are nitpicks. It’s not a completely original story (Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman share screenwriting credit, while Daley Pearson gets the story credit), but it obscures well where it uses the familiar tropes, and leans heavily on the new.
Talk to Me is a welcome addition to the October Horrorshow on the emotional reaction it got from me, and the overall strength of the production and the performances. It’s also simply a good movie.