It’s not often that an Aussie horror movie comes along that gets everybody’s attention around the world.
Wolf Creek did it, The Babadook still haunts those who saw it and now Talk To Me is nesting in the back of our minds for what I’m sure is years to come.
It’s killing it (pun intended) overseas, making waves at film festivals and breaking the 10-million-dollar mark in its opening weekend in US and Canadian cinemas. This doesn’t always translate to Australian audiences flocking to see some home-grown content, but I’m happy to say that it’s even doing well here. Top it off with an impressive 95% Positive Rotten Tomato Rating, it got me curious.
Could it be that good?
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Classic teenagers… They find something spooky, possibly life threatening, and want to make a game out of it.
In Talk To Me some crazy kids have come into possession (another pun) of a severed, embalmed hand that if you hold it and utter the words “talk to me”, the hand will conjure a wayward spirit that only you can see. Then, if you’re feeling extra plucky, you could say “I let you in” and that spirit will then possess you. Your friends will get a bit of a show, as you throw your head back and your eyes will go black as this spirit begins the process of possession, even giving your mates a bit of time to converse with the spirit through you.
The cheeky youths have worked out that if you remove the hand from the ‘talker’ before 90 seconds is up, no seemingly long-term harm is done. But of course, they don’t adhere to their own rules and things go pear-shaped pretty quickly.
This movie made me feel uneasy, but in the best possible way.
Horror is my favourite film genre, and I’ve seen a lot of it. So, I find it hard to actually be impressed by many new offerings these days, in fact while most people are cowering in fear I tend to get, well, bored. But this reminded me of the first time I saw A Nightmare On Elm Street or The Ring, a fresh new take on the genre that had me engrossed the entire time. The mysterious lore surrounding this embalmed hand had me really taken.
I needed to know where it came from, why you can commune with the dead through it, and wanted to know what it was actually doing to you when you use it. I was feeling a thrill similar to those punk teenagers on screen.
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Talk To Me really moves along at a tight 95-minute runtime and doesn’t rely on jumps, gore or special effects to scare the hell out of you. It instead leans on clever cinematography (you really feel the whiplash when the characters are possessed) and punchy editing.
The absolute best thing about this flick is that it is unapologetically Australian. A lot of the time I find Australian acting to be a bit cringey, but it all feels so natural here.
Miranda Otto makes a welcome appearance as the mother of our heroine’s best friend, and there is one unforgettable scene where she gets a whiff that her kids might be throwing a party when she leaves for the night. She then begins to interrogate the girls (they deny it), before attempting to play mind games on the younger brother in an effort to get him to spill the beans. When he doesn’t break, one of the best lines in movie history occurs: this mother tells her son that if she finds out he is lying, she will punch him in the face. I was crying, I laughed so hard.
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Saying that, the only fault I could find was with some of the supporting actors’ performances. By no means bad, but compared to the genuine portrayals by the leads they feel a bit stilted.
Small gripes aside, I haven’t been taken by a horror movie like this for a very long time, it makes it all the better that it was produced in our own backyard.
Talk To Me is the best horror film I have seen since Hereditary. It lives up to the hype.
