"Talk to me" best horror movie simple and scary

Since William Friedkin and Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist left audience members being carted out of cinemas on stretchers in 1973, possession movies have found themselves fascinated with generational divides.

The trope of the young child leaking black goo from their eyes to the horror of the adults around them isn’t cinema’s subtlest metaphor. It is, however, one of the most enduring. And now, with Danny and Michael Philippou’s directorial debut Talk to Me, it’s been given an ingeniously modern twist.

On the anniversary of her mother's untimely death, high schooler Mia (Sophie Wilde), her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and Jade's little brother, Riley (Joe Bird), sneak out to a house party. While there, they discover a new game going around: Talk to Me. A couple of Mia's classmates have a plaster hand, posed at an awkward angle. A person shakes the hand and says, "Talk to me. I let you in." The spirit of a dead person then enters the living person and speaks through them. The catch? If you don't let go of the hand and blow out the candle after 90 seconds, the spirit could decide to hang around.

Co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou, 29-year-old Australian twins who achieved viral success with their horror-comedy YouTube channel RackaRacka, make their feature debut with a story whose central figures are frustratingly adolescent. After a well-received premiere at South by Southwest, “Talk to Me” was picked up by the indie distributor A24.

It is such a rush that Mia and Jade decide to have a couple of people over and do it again. Everyone has fun, taking turns talking to the spirits, until Riley goes under. It seems the spirit talking through him is Mia's mother. There is panic, as Mia begs to leave Riley under longer so she can talk to her mother. Unfortunately, things go very, very wrong for Riley before the group finally disengages him. He ends up hospitalized in a coma, as Mia is desperate to reach him--all while being haunted by visions of her dead mother.

They agreed that they should keep Riley’s possession to just 50 seconds; no one so young has ever held the hand. It seemed safer that way. But Mia, hearing her mother, can’t bear to let her go just yet. Just a little longer, she begs. And a little longer.

Sixty. Eighty. Ninety. The seconds tick by. The door stays open.

And those on the other side plan to keep it that way.

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Sarah H

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