Talk to Me review – visu­al­ly and emo­tion­al­ly bru­tal horror

Some may roll their eyes to the back of their head like Rea­gan in The Exor­cist at Aus­tralian YouTu­bers Rack­Rac­ka (aka Dan­ny and Michael Philip­pou) mak­ing the leap to fea­ture film­mak­ing, but their dar­ing mod­ern hor­ror employs its cen­tral con­cept of teenagers using demon­ic pos­ses­sion to get high as a thrilling and emo­tion­al­ly engag­ing explo­ration of grief, peer pres­sure and teen life in the dig­i­tal age.

The twin broth­ers behind the film have spent years mak­ing DIY hor­ror-com­e­dy and their pas­sion and knowl­edge of the genre is glar­ing­ly appar­ent in this thor­ough­ly dis­turb­ing debut. The film hits the ground run­ning with a vio­lent pro­logue at a par­ty all shot in one impres­sive and ener­get­i­cal­ly paced take. The stakes are high from the start so that when the main char­ac­ters are intro­duced you’re already anx­ious for their safety.

Excep­tion­al new­com­er Sophie Wilde stars as Mia who is griev­ing her mother’s death. It’s the day of the one-year anniver­sary of her pass­ing and she’s look­ing to dis­tract her­self, so per­suades her best friend Jade (Alexan­dra Jensen) to attend a pos­ses­sion par­ty. Jade’s younger broth­er Riley (Joe Bird) and her celi­bate boyfriend Daniel (Otis Dhan­ji) tag along too. The twins don’t for­get to add humour to the mix and gift Miran­da Otto, who plays the very know­ing moth­er to Jade, with some of the fun­ni­est lines; her deliv­ery is spot on.

It is essen­tial that there are rules to the chaos in teen hor­ror and the Philip­pous care­ful­ly lay them out in a sim­i­lar way to films like It Fol­lows, Ringu and A Night­mare on Elm Street. As the own­ers of a creepy embalmed hand that can open a gate to the spir­it world, Hay­ley (Zoe Ter­akes) and Joss (Chris Alo­sio) explain them: touch the hand, repeat a phrase, let the spir­it in and make sure to stop after 90 seconds.

To begin with, the pos­ses­sion scenes are dizzy­ing­ly ren­dered, effec­tive­ly cap­tur­ing the curios­i­ty of youth and the excite­ment of being part of the group. They are brought to life with fan­tas­tic make-up, hor­ri­fy­ing effects, metic­u­lous edit­ing and an up-to-date sound­track includ­ing music from social media sen­sa­tion The Kid LAROI. As the thrill of the ses­sions become addic­tive Mia’s men­tal health dete­ri­o­rates and she under­goes a trans­for­ma­tion that par­al­lels drug use.

The Philip­pou twins have craft­ed cred­i­ble teen char­ac­ters, each with their own par­tic­u­lar set of fears which are preyed on as the pos­ses­sion scenes get increas­ing­ly dark­er. Sex­u­al desires, lone­li­ness and just want­i­ng to fit in are all shock­ing­ly trans­lat­ed through com­mit­ted phys­i­cal per­for­mances from the very capa­ble young cast. Wilde in par­tic­u­lar uses her phys­i­cal­i­ty to ter­ri­fy­ing ends.

The teens get a real kick out of an unknown enti­ty inhab­it­ing them and the film trans­lates that buzz of con­nec­tion in a way that can be read as metaphor for meet­ing peo­ple online. The real dan­ger and gasp-induc­ing vio­lence emerges once they start to take unnec­es­sary risks in search of IRL gen­uine con­nec­tion. This is uncom­pro­mis­ing hor­ror that per­cep­tive­ly taps into con­tem­po­rary life with visu­al flair and smarts.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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