“Talk to Me” is a horror movie from Australia, directed by Danny and Michael Phillapu. They are known on Youtube as Rackaracka for their horror-comedy movies and skits. They haven’t been as active on Youtube since it was announced they were planning on releasing movies theatrically.
“Talk to Me” is their first movie released in theaters internationally on July 27, 2023. The duo has been creating content since 2013; first creating fake-fail videos on Facebook and later creating content on Youtube a few months later at the age of 13. They are currently in the works of making a sequel to “Talk to Me”, called “Bring Her Back”, that follows the series of events after “Talk to Me”.
“Talk to Me” takes place in Australia . It is about an embalmed stone hand that’s used in parties thrown by Hayley, played by Zoe Terakes, you can only attend if you have an invite. The hand gets passed around to those who want to participate. It is said that the hand shows you the dead and allows them to take over your body.
Each participant needs to hold the hand as if they were giving it a handshake and say the words “talk to me.” You can hold the hand for up to 90 seconds, any time longer than that and the spirit will want to stay and get complete and total control of your body with no known cure.
The main character, Mia played by Sophie Wilde, is the first participant in the hand game hoping to be able to reach her mom. She held on for a bit more than 90 seconds because the spirit that possessed her did not allow her to take her hand off. She was a bit disappointed in the results, failing to contact her mother. After convincing Hayley the hand handler, she was able to use the hand again. However she failed to contact her mother again until her friend’s younger brother Riley, played by Joe Bird, was curious as to how it works and tried the hand.
When he held his hand he was possessed by Mia’s “mom.” When the timer ended and they tried to separate him from the hand, Mia was insistent that they keep it on wanting to hear what her mother wanted to say. He held on for way longer than what was allowed and was possessed by a violent spirit who was not Mia’s mom that forced him to hurt himself so badly he had to go to a hospital because of a coma. Now Mia’s friend is mad at Mia for letting her brother play the game and Mia tries to find a way to save him, but saving him meant she had to make a huge sacrifice.
This movie was very enjoyable to watch for two main reasons, the first one being that it was horror and two because the plot was something I hadn’t seen before.
Other popular movies about possession are about people being in a vulnerable position which allows access to spirits and demons to possess them as they slowly or sometimes very suddenly, get possessed. In this movie it shows how naive and foolish people can be in situations like this. In this case the group wanted to know more about what is on the other side and each video that gets posted has more and more people questioning whether the video is doctored or if it’s really real.
How? How is something like this possible? It also gives hope to others wanting to talk to their loved ones one last time like Mia did. The directors and writers of the film say that the hand represents friends helping each other and pulling each other out of darkness. Similar to what happened towards the end of the movie, where everyone desperately tries to find ways to save Riley and return his body to the actual owner.
