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Danny and Michael Philippou's “Talk to Me” cleverly imagines a deadly craze that would easily sweep a generation—this horror movie's plausibility is one of the freakiest things about it. The social media-feeding frenzy involves spiritual possession, made possible by grasping a ceramic-encased severed hand graffitied with names and symbols that suggest a long line of previous owners. Aussie teens like Mia ( Sophie Wilde ), Jade ( Alexandra Jensen ), and eventually Jade's younger brother Riley ( Joe Bird ) are the latest players in such a game, which has them seeing dead people and giving them access to their tied-up bodies for 90 seconds, tops. When the spirits are "let in," the teens suddenly shoot backward in a chair (the camera jolting back with them, the sound mix dropping out), and their pupils burst into a deep black. They shiver, choke, and asphyxiate as if they are gonna die. Meanwhile, their giddy friends surround them, filming. What a rush, as a YouTuber probably once said about eating Tide pods.  

It's a brilliant device for a modern horror story ( Daley Pearson is credited as the concept's creator), and a franchise waiting to happen (in the case of horror, that often means a fruitful idea is intact, like when " Final Destination ," " The Purge ," and " Saw " first debuted.) “Talk to Me” could easily lead to a higher body count or a more directly spooky story in its sequels. But the game begins small here with a sincere pitch that aims for the gut—this first installment is about watching someone be possessed by horrible ideas of grief, and the damage their decisions inflict on their loved ones. 

There are rules for how this dance with death can be done "safely," and in a snappy montage that mixes partying with possessive play, we get a great sense of what extreme fun it can be for Mia, her friends, and the hand's current owners, Hayley ( Zoe Terakes ) and Joss ( Chris Alosio ). But everything shifts in a nifty, nasty instant when one of the spirits that overtakes young Riley turns out to be Mia's mother who died by suicide two years previous. Or at least the spirit claims to be. A freaked-out Mia forces this one communication with the dead to go on too long, putting Riley in a coma with many self-inflicted gashes on his head, an attempt by the spirit to kill his soul and fully control his body. 

The second half of "Talk to Me" suffers from being yet another recent horror movie built on the trauma of loss, but it gets a special amount of layers from Sophie Wilde's excellent performance. It's not just about Mia trying to hold onto contact with her mother, but her need to not lose her new family, that of Jade, Riley, and their protective mother Sue (played with dry toughness by Miranda Otto ) in the process. We ache for Mia to be OK, especially since she's such a bright personality—her constant yellow wardrobe always pops, and she has sweet scenes with Riley, like when the Philippous hard-cut to them early on bursting out Sia's "Chandelier" during a night-time car ride. Wilde exemplifies a feverish, youthful need to balance both the pains of the past and a jeopardized future, and by trying to hack the hand's magic, she isolates herself from reality in the process. "Talk to Me" could have been more rote without such voluminous work, but Wilde's tragic interpretation—her big-screen debut—is one for the horror movie history books. 

The Philippous rarely show us the TikToks or Snapchats that document these possessions, but we don't need to see them: these freaky scenarios play out exactly as they might in real life, with writers Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman  allowing teens to be teens. When everything starts to fall apart—and souls are on the line—the characters just become more stubborn, their desperation making things worse and even more dangerous. "Talk to Me" has the bare wisdom of a coming-of-age tale, and while it conjures a few excellent moments of guffawing disbelief from the audience, it never talks down to the audience it wants to reflect. The Philippous' filmmaking comes from YouTube (known there as RackaRacka), and their eye for this psychology is more savvy than it is cynical. 

A good deal of nasty fun is scattered throughout "Talk to Me," especially for fans of well-made blood-dribbling head wounds, sound design that makes you wince without relying on jump scares, and a tone that doesn't play nice. Plus, the movie's playful possession scenes get better and better (the movie's young cast is impressive wriggling in those chairs, even if the possession make-up style looks familiar to so many other movies). But "Talk to Me" can bank too much of its quality on simply being a good pitch best fulfilled later—it's hard not to see its gripping opening scene of terror, a one-shot through an unrelated, crowded party, as an isolated red herring not followed through by the rest of the film. The movie's overall restraint is admirable, and best felt in the numerous moments when the camera holds on someone's scared face, so we can build dread about what ghoul they are looking at. But "Talk to Me" risks holding back too much despite its excellent concept's promise. 

Whether or not we get more rounds with this hand of fate, "Talk to Me" lingers as a striking and confident directorial debut from the Philippous, whose penchant for hyper-active YouTube fight and prank vids is mostly evident in this movie's emotional carnage. With such a playful send-up on a possession story, the Philippous have successfully crossed over into feature filmmaking, but it will take a little more genre ingenuity for us to keep talking about them. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Talk to Me (2023)

Rated R for strong/bloody violent content, some sexual material and language throughout.

Sophie Wilde as Mia

Joe Bird as Riley

Alexandra Jensen as Jade

Otis Dhanji as Daniel

Miranda Otto as Sue

Zoe Terakes as Hayley

Chris Alosio as Joss

Marcus Johnson as Max

Alexandria Steffensen as Rhea

Ari McCarthy as Cole

Sunny Johnson as Duckett

• Michael Philippou
• Danny Philippou
• Bill Hinzman

Cinematographer

• Aaron McLisky
• Cornel Wilczek

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Review: You have to hand it to ‘Talk to Me,’ a gripping thriller about love and loss

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If Regan MacNeil were to go skittering backward down the stairs today, would her onlookers scream in terror or whip out their phones — or both? The question comes to mind more than once during “Talk to Me,” a viscerally effective supernatural freakout in which demonic possession isn’t just an abomination but an addiction, a recreational pastime and sometimes even a viral event.

In the movie’s most pleasurably disturbing sequence, several thrill-seeking teenagers take turns shaking hands with the devil, conjuring malevolent spirits for a brief spell and videoing the results for kicks, laughs and internet posterity. Better judgment be damned; the power of likes compels them.

The idea that kids these days might rent out their bodies and risk their souls for 90 seconds at a time is so darkly funny and spookily resonant, it’s a bit of a letdown that this sharp, bristling Australian thriller doesn’t take it much further. What the concept does establish from the outset — starting with a squirmy house-party prologue, featuring much stabbing of flesh and waving of phones — is a keen sense of the dark side of youthful anomie, and the ways even an ostensibly good time can go lethally awry. Danny and Michael Philippou, twin brothers making a slick and assured feature directing debut, know that a casual hangout isn’t always just a casual hangout, especially when there are lingering rivalries and unhealed traumas festering just beneath the surface.

Purely in terms of latent emotional volatility, the most troubled and troubling character in “Talk to Me” is its teenage protagonist, Mia (the excellent newcomer Sophie Wilde), who’s hiding more than her share of scars beneath her warm smile and gregarious demeanor. Since her mother’s untimely death not too long ago, Mia spends less time at home and more time with her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and Jade’s younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird, in a superb and surprising performance). It’s both telling and touching that one of the first times we see Mia, she’s giving Riley a ride home, with both of them belting along to Sia‘s “Chandelier” on the radio. The two are practically surrogate siblings; unlike Jade, with whom Riley bickers constantly, Mia is the cool big sister he wishes he had.

But then the car stops, its headlights revealing a mortally wounded kangaroo — a regionally specific piece of roadkill, yes, but otherwise an all-too-familiar harbinger of horror-movie disaster. Before long, Jade, Riley and Mia find themselves at a party, where they’re sucked into a game centered on a creepily disembodied hand, now embalmed and encased in ceramic, that’s rumored to have once belonged to a medium with the power to conjure the dead. The hand’s rowdy present owners (Zoe Terakes and Chris Alosio) lay out the rules: With a few magic words (“Talk to me,” “I let you in”) and a firm, willing handshake, each player can invite a spirit into their body, with deliciously freaky results. But the invitation must be revoked in 90 seconds or less, lest the possession risk becoming permanent.

It’s a nifty, hooky premise, one that soon gives rise to that inspired recreational montage. The grotesque prosthetic effects and nerve-shredding sound design are first rate; they’re also a calculatedly showy distraction. Beneath all the creepy pupil dilations and ghoulish makeup, the Philippou brothers, working from a script by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, maintain a strong grip on the group’s emotional dynamics, layering on the minor misunderstandings and petty jealousies while maneuvering their characters into position. By the time Mia comes face to face with what may be the spirit of her late mom, what began as a game has tilted into a full-blown hallucinatory nightmare.

The specifics, violent and terrifying, are best left for you to discover. Suffice to say that Mia is hurled into a maelstrom of guilt, terror and desperation that finds her suddenly estranged from a family — Jade’s — that had come to feel like her own. To some extent, “Talk to Me” is very much about this blurring of emotional and relational boundaries. With parents and children so often at odds, whether it’s Jade arguing with her protective single mother (a fine Miranda Otto) or Mia walling herself off from her grieving dad (Marcus Johnson), real family is often where you find it. The intimacy of friendship becomes its own benign form of possession, a willing exchange of souls.

These are fascinating, even moving ideas, even if the Philippou brothers don’t always have them entirely under control. In its harrowing closing stretch, the narrative begins to unravel in ways both effective and not; as Mia struggles to appease or defeat the demonic forces in her midst, it’s not always clear if the movie is dramatizing or succumbing to her break with reality.

But even when “Talk to Me” flirts with incoherence, Wilde pulls it back from the brink. More than just a great scream queen, she makes vivid sense of Mia’s ravaged emotions, revealing her to be a captive less to the spirit realm than to her own inconsolable grief. She’s the movie’s revelation, hands down.

'Talk to Me'

Rating: R, for strong/bloody violent content, some sexual material and language throughout Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes Playing: Starts July 28 in general release

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• Talk To Me is a potent dose of unrelenting teen horror

A familiar premise is elevated by a combination of brutal violence and urgent pacing.

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a group of high school kids gets their hands on a cursed occult object, and after some fun and games, they end up being terrorized by a presence from the other side. It’s not the most original premise. But in Talk To Me — the directorial debut from brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, best known for their YouTube channel — it takes on a new urgency and ferocity with a story that races to its bloody, brutal conclusion without letting up.

The occult object in question is an embalmed hand that supposedly has the power to let people see, and be possessed by, the spirits of dead folk. The process is straightforward: you grab the hand, say “talk to me” to summon a random specter, and then say “I let you in” to invite them to inhabit your body. It’s creepy stuff, and easy to repeat, making it the ideal thing for viral video fame. Suddenly, high school kids in Australia are watching videos of what appear to be possessions, sometimes ending in a splash of blood. Of course, it’s just a hoax, right?

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Mia (Sophie Wilde) first experiences the effects of the ritual at a party, and she instantly becomes hooked. Possession, it seems, is as addictive as a drug — especially for teens going through a tough time, where being out of body for a bit is a welcome change. This is Mia, who is grieving the loss of her mother, and who clings desperately to her friends Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Riley (Joe Bird) to stave off the loneliness. Not long after her first experience, she tries it again and — despite objections — lets Riley join in, too.

One important part of the ritual is timing. Let the spirit stay in for too long, and it won’t want to leave. Her inability to stop going back for more possessions, combined with this very strict rule, ends up leaving Mia haunted by terrifying visions, while she’s also trying to save her friend from a living nightmare.

What follows is a fairly standard ghost story, but one that’s elevated by urgency and brutality. Seriously, when bad things happen in this movie, they’re really bad — “I had to look away from the screen” bad. Possessed kids brutalizing themselves, horrifying visions of the afterlife, and deaths that, even when you see them coming, are so violent you can’t help but wince. That’s perhaps to be expected from a film helmed by the proprietors of a YouTube channel full of goofy and gory videos. But the Philippou brothers show a remarkable amount of restraint in Talk To Me . There’s more to the violence than pure shock value; it punctuates the story, which — once it gets going — moves at an unrelenting pace. The twists and turns aren’t necessarily all that surprising, in retrospect, but they come at you so quickly that it feels like you barely have a minute to catch your breath.

If nothing else, Talk To Me is a shockingly competent debut — and not at all what I expected from a horror movie made by YouTube stars. It may be a movie about viral videos — but the film itself is much more than an extended YouTube skit.

This review is based on a screening at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Talk To Me doesn’t currently have a premiere date, but it’s reportedly been acquired by A24 for distribution .

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Talk to me review: horror film delivers chilling, unnerving scares [sxsw].

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Talk to Me takes the living’s relationship with the dead and dials it up to 100. Directed by Michael Philippou and Danny Philippou, who co-wrote the screenplay with Bill Hinzman from a concept by Daley Pearson, the horror film is packed with intense scares and an unsettling feeling that lingers even after the story concludes. The Philippou’s directorial debut is electrifying, intense, and terrifying. The film isn’t simply concerned with jump scares, and its horror settles deep into the bones, a disquiet that ultimately rattles the nerves.

It’s been two years since the death of Mia’s (Sophie Wilde) mother Rhea. Mia is still coming to grips with the circumstances of Rhea’s death, but she has a good support system that includes best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), her younger brother Riley (Joe Bird), and mother Sue (Miranda Otto). When the trio attends a party that involves conjuring the spirits of the dead through an embalmed hand, Mia and her friends become addicted to the thrill of witnessing the spirits and allowing them to possess their bodies, inviting them in with the phrase, “Talk to me.” But things get dangerous and creepy when Mia starts seeing her dead mother after being possessed by another spirit for more than the time allowed.

Talk to Me is every bit about grief as it is about being haunted. To that end, the film explores loss and the empty space it leaves behind following the death of a loved one. Mia is not alright, and the thrill of seeking out the dead — regardless of how scary it can be — sounds exciting. It allows her to feel things beyond heartache; it even makes her feel alive. The film gently handles Mia’s feelings, affording her the space to delve into her grief, while also showcasing the consequences of everyone’s actions. By the time the film concludes, viewers will walk away astounded by what they’ve just witnessed. It’s treacherous, gruesome, and heartbreaking all at once.

The horror elements are powerful on every level. The lighting, cinematography, and the practical effects work in tandem to create bone-chilling moments that are terrifying and imposing. The idea that interacting with the dead can be intoxicating is explored throughout, especially as the teen characters realize it’s all fun and games until the consequences become too great to ignore. Sophie Wilde’s performance is superb, instilling Mia with a sense of fear, emotional distance, and a yearning to be close to her mother again. The circle of life and death abounds, culminating in an excellent final moment, and Wilde’s ability to balance all of Mia’s emotions and sympathetic actions underscore the tension and themes of the film.

Talk to Me doesn’t offer any easy answers, and this well-paced, gripping horror isn’t afraid to take risks, either. The film turns its focus on the connection between the living and the dead, and how the lines can be blurred, as well as how one can feel so lost and empty inside to the point that living feels like a chore. Mia’s grief permeates the film, and it is through her that Talk to Me explores this deep-rooted longing and the effects of loss on someone’s psyche. This is especially true when someone doesn’t have the answers or closure they crave, as is the case with Mia, who becomes susceptible to what the embalmed hand can offer.

While the horror film draws out some of its story in the middle, the final act ties everything together, leaving the audience with a final moment that is haunting and simultaneously electrifying. Talk to Me is an assured directorial debut, serving up plenty of terror, gore, and emotional beats in a story that is well-developed and carefully crafted. Audiences will be hooked to the screen, impatiently awaiting what comes next in this unsettling, thrilling horror.

Talk to Me premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival on March 12. The film is 94 minutes long and is not yet rated.

Our Rating:

• 3.5 star movies
• Talk to Me (2023)

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Eric Ravenscraft

Talk to Me Is Horror Made by and for the Internet Generation

Kids are going to do stupid stuff. But what does being terminally online do to IRL relationships when the entire internet is in the palm of your hand? In that world, what does real connection even look like?

These were some of the many questions posed by Talk to Me , the new horror film from directing duo Danny and Michael Philippou. This movie isn’t really about the internet, which forms an invisible presence in the background, reaching in to influence the characters’ lives. In that way, it’s not unlike the deceased spirits the film’s protagonists are trying to contact.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Talk to Me centers on Mia (Sophia Wild), a teenager who became close with brother-sister pair Riley and Jade (Joe Bird and Alexandra Jensen) following the death of her mother. At a house party, one of the trio’s friends produces a mysterious ceramic hand, etched with cryptic writing. Light a candle, hold the hand, say the titular line, and the totem can bring anyone face-to-face with a random dead person’s ghost. With another voice command, the hand can even let the spirit into their body for a short while.

While the premise sounds like so many other movies about teens dabbling in the dark arts, each of the seances are shot like they’re in your stoner friend’s basement in college. One by one, the kids are possessed while the others pull out their phones and laugh at how strung out they get. Then the kids post the videos online, despite their friends’ protests.

With this framing, much of the horror in the film comes not from nameless hell spawn, but from the callousness with which peers bully each other—and the fear of losing what found family you still have. In fact, for much of the film, letting a dead person possess the kids’ bodies is almost portrayed as harmless fun. Don’t stay possessed for too long; don’t take too high a dose of the underworld—but as long as you’re safe, it should be fine.

Things only start to go off the rails when the spirits become more familiar. This ties in to the film’s themes of connection, grief, and coping mechanisms. But what I find most fascinating is how the characters are egged on by the pressure of social media.

While that’s not the focus of the movie, it’s hard to avoid, given that the directors got their start on YouTube. The twins have been creating videos since before they were teenagers, and in at least one instance, one of them was arrested for a stunt that involved driving a car filled with water .

It’s hard not to feel that extra weight when the phones come out. Kids are being peer-pressured to take a hit of supernatural powers that none of them can control. And when they get freaked out or terrified by what they experience, well, that’s #content, baby.

Talk to Me doesn’t dwell on the internet itself—there’s no montage of likes and comments or even any indication of whether anyone’s watching the videos at all. The movie concerns itself more with how the pressure to perform can affect the person who’s captured on camera.

Boone Ashworth

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It’s an added dimension in a horror film that manages to keep audiences on edge while exploring how difficult it can be to find safe connections and community in the midst of tragedy.

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'Talk to Me' Review: This Wild Horror Debut Is a Smash Hit for a Reason

This horror spectacle of spirits, toe sucking, and the worst party game you could ever play is good family fun.

The Big Picture

• Talk to Me is a frequently smashing good horror film from Danny and Michael Philippou.
• Sophie Wilde gives a strong performance even when the film descends into chaos.
• Some elements of the film can ultimately feel a little underdeveloped.

This review was originally part of our coverage for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Sometimes, horror can be downright nasty. This doesn’t just refer to the gore, but the way it is all used. In Talk To Me , the feature debut from YouTubers turned directors Danny and Michael Philippou , possession becomes a way by which to pulverize their characters . It is these moments that are the highlights of the experience in all their stomach-churning viscera. As they get more outrageous, it comes at the audience with brutal and bloody cinematic madness that makes the most of the chaos that unfolds before you.

When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.

Even when the film isn’t able to maintain this same kinetic energy and is often more of a spectacle than it is fully scary, the ride along the way can still be a lot of fun. It has drawn some comparisons to director Sam Rami ’s Evil Dead which, while not entirely off base, do overstate its creativity ever so slightly. However, when the film grabs hold of you in a couple of standout sequences, there is still something delightful in how it embraces the depravity without blinking a bloody eye .

What Is 'Talk to Me' About?

Operating in proximity to the transmissible curse subgenre , Talk to Me begins with a man wandering through a party looking for his friend who is not acting like himself these days. When he finds him, we see that he is clearly having a really rough time. More than just a bad trip of some kind, he subsequently kills his friend and then himself while shocked partygoers record on their phones. We then meet Mia, played by Sophie Wilde in her feature debut, who is drawn to taking part in a ritual that allows you to let the spirit of someone who has passed on into your body. It is like a supernatural Russian roulette as you have no control whatsoever over who may come knocking or what they may want to take from you once they do.

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This game is what all the cool kids are doing these days as we see videos of them gathering at parties to take in the chaos of the supernatural. All you have to do is grab hold of an embalmed hand without letting go, say the right words, and your body is no longer yours. The only rule is that it must not go on for any longer than ninety seconds or these spirits may want to stay around forever. When Sophie tries it out for herself, it works exactly as explained, and she is thrilled by the experience. She and her friends then decide to do it more, testing fate each time without a care in the world about the inevitable looming consequences .

It is these possession sequences that are the heart of the film and where it is most engaging. While more creepy in an over-the-top fashion than it is fully scary, the flair with which it brings them to life is quite fantastic . Observing the various characters vanish while something else takes over their bodies is played with an eye for the extreme. In one moment, a character begins mocking the sexual activity of another before having what is essentially a supernatural orgasm before making out with the dog. You know, just fun party times for everyone to enjoy.

'Talk to Me' Gestures Toward Deeper Ideas Though Works Best as a Brutal Horror Film

When he subsequently awakens, he is incredibly embarrassed though everyone else laughs and gawks at his misery while posting videos online to share with others as he runs out of the room. There is possibly a light undercurrent about what the film is trying to say about how youth culture is wrapped up in vapidity, but that is the least interesting aspect of the experience . What makes it all work are the thrills that come from the characters peering into the great beyond and discovering something is peering back. For Mia, this becomes personal and ties into familial horrors from her past that she begins to question her present understanding of.

This more serious element of the story can feel like it is a little underdeveloped , but it doesn’t cause too many issues once everything begins to get really gruesome. If anything, the way Mia has repressed her past and how it then gets brought back to the surface makes it all the more menacing. Her growing realization can only come after a truly grim sequence for which she is partly the cause. Without spoiling the revelation of who it is and what happens, a younger character close to Mia becomes grievously injured after he stayed under the control of a spirit for too long at her urging when she recognized who it was that had taken over.

'Talk to Me's Best Scene Was Shot in Just 30 Minutes

There is an audacity to this sequence as the film pushes it further and further. It goes on for so long that you wonder how this unlucky character’s head is even attached, let alone whether he is still alive . From there forward, even as the story can be a bit shaky at times, just taking in the fallout of this moment holds it together. In particular, the growing fear that Mia has about her past and her future ensures the excesses remain grounded enough to keep you engaged.

Wilde's Performance and a Great Conclusion Elevate 'Talk to Me'

Are there still some elements where the story could have benefited from a bit more nuance? Absolutely. Does it really matter when a character becomes possessed and begins sucking on the foot of another? Probably not. There is that interesting push and pull where the film seems to want to say something more while still wrapping itself up in the spectacle. The way this culminates in the conclusion actually works rather well, as we see the tragic results of all of Mia’s desperate attempts to find closure and set things right . She carries a heavy weight on her shoulders that no one else on this plane of being is able to understand or help her with.

Throughout all of this, Wilde gives a strong performance , speaking volumes with just her physicality as we begin to understand when Mia is herself and when she very much isn’t. When the tables become turned in an absolutely killer final shot, this all pays off and smooths over any of the problems that may have arisen on the path it took to get there. Whether you can stomach it enough to make it all the way will depend on the viewer, but Talk To Me has plenty that promises to capture the souls of horror sickos looking for a sinister spectacle.

Talk to Me is a smash horror hit for a reason, packing plenty of gruesome moments even if other aspects can feel slightly underdeveloped.

• The standout central scene where a character is nearly pulverized is terrifying and brutal in all the best ways.
• Sophie Wilde gives a strong performance, holding the film together even when it threatens to come apart.
• The ending ties everything together rather nicely, leaving us adrift in a great beyond from which there is no escape.
• While it gestures at more weighty ideas, Talk to Me doesn't really develop these ideas as much as it could or should have.
• It could have benefited from more nuance rather than the repetition that it occasionally falls into.

Talk to Me is now available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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Talk to Me review – an Evil Dead for the Snapchat generation

Australian YouTuber twins Danny and Michael Philippou’s feature debut is an entertaining chiller that mixes shrieking horror and psychological nuance

T he crepuscular palette of It Comes at Night meets the teen-friendly curses of Ringu and the cackling demonic infestations of The Evil Dead in this sprightly debut feature from Australian twins Danny and Michael Philippou. A sharp blend of psychological reality (bereavement, guilt), potent topicality (addiction, dependency) and phantasmagorial invention (a gateway to the beyond) create an intelligently entertaining chiller that packs a crowd-pleasing wallop without succumbing to quiet, quiet, LOUD jump-scare cliches.

An unexpectedly pointed party opening (as startling as Scream ) and a distressing roadkill encounter with a kangaroo (“It’s crying, you can’t leave it like this”) neatly set the scene for what is to come. Two years after the untimely death of her mother, 17-year-old Mia (Sophie Wilde) has retreated from her father, preferring to hang out at the home of best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), who lives with her mum, Sue (Miranda Otto), and younger brother Riley (Joe Bird). When a Snapchat video of schoolfriends using a creepy ceramic hand to conjure evil spirits goes viral, Mia is eager to get in on the game: to grasp the haunted limb, to say the magic words “Talk to me” and “I let you in” and to become possessed by a dead soul – albeit for only a minute.

It’s a thrill Mia finds utterly intoxicating, taking her out of the here and now, temporarily obliterating her underlying sadness. Young Riley wants to have a go too, but Jade refuses – only for Mia to ignore her objections, with disastrous consequences. Distracted by what she believes is the voice of her dead mother, Mia lets Riley stay under the spell too long, unleashing a self-destructive force that will drag them all to hell.

There are plenty of familiar demon-eyed theatrics and visceral physical shocks in Talk to Me , some of which will make you shudder and shriek . But beneath the shiversome (and at times derivative) surface there are darker forces at work, echoing real-life videos of kids filming each other having bad drug trips, then posting them online. Like Bill Gunn’s 1973 “black vampire” cult classic Ganja & Hess , the supernatural elements of Talk to Me may be its main selling point, but it’s the down-to-earth aspects that bite. For all the film’s occult trappings, the Philippous (along with co-writer Bill Hinzman) are more interested in telling a story about young people riddled with anxiety, seeking escape in dangerously illicit rituals that get them out of their heads – literally. No wonder the film’s title sounds less like an incantation than a cry for help.

Having made a splash via their DIY RackaRacka action/comedy/horror YouTube channel , the Philippous (both of whom crewed on Jennifer Kent’s groundbreaking Oz chiller The Babadook ) make the transition to the feature film format with ease, retaining the anarchic energy of their early online work while embracing the more complex arcs of character-led drama. Plaudits to cinematographer Aaron McLisky, who shot the acclaimed short films Nursery Rhymes (2018) and Kilter (2020), and who imbues Talk to Me (which also draws inspiration from a Daley Pearson short script about demonic possession as a high) with an eerie blend of gliding calm and shrieking horror.

An image of bloodied hand-washing evokes the guilt-ridden Shakespearean spectre of Lady Macbeth, while the sight of fresh blood being licked from a tiled floor recalls a shocking moment from Guillermo del Toro’s feature debut, Cronos . But for all the genre nods, this remains very much its own movie – a film that isn’t afraid to talk to its core audience, even while giving them the heebie-jeebies.

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Communing With the Dead Just to Feel Alive

A24 has a reputation for being a bastion of art-house horror, thanks to its ties to Ari Aster and Robert Eggers and releases like It Comes at Night and Saint Maud . But the company’s latest find, the Australian movie Talk to Me , is gratifyingly quick to the chase, skipping a slow burn in favor of a premise with an easy simplicity. A figurine has been kicking around the teenage scene in suburban Australia — one that supposedly grants the ability to communicate with the dead. This otherworldly object has the shape of an outstretched hand and is creepy while also looking like something you might find in the sale section at Urban Outfitters. Its current owners claim that beneath the ceramic is the embalmed limb of a medium or a satanist, but no one knows if this is true or cares all that much. What matters is that the thing works — if you clasp it and say “talk to me,” you see what appears to be a ghost, and if you add, “I let you in,” the ghost will take over your body until someone else pries the statuette out of your grasp. There are other rules involving a candle and ensuring the possession doesn’t last for longer than 90 seconds, but the characters see the hand’s powers as an unparalleled party trick rather than as an exact science. Proof of an afterlife? Sure, but more than anything, it’s tremendous content.

In fact, the first time we see someone in the grip of the hand, it’s on the screen of a phone belonging to Mia (Sophie Wilde), though her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) thinks the video’s fake. Danny and Michael Philippou, Talk to Me ’s directors , would know, given that they cut their teeth running a 6.74 million–subscriber strong YouTube channel infamous for wild stunts and DIY effects. Their feature-film debut is, in comparison, an impressively slick piece of work, one that puts thought into how the movement of the camera reflects Mia’s increasing disorientation after a rowdy supernatural session. But they’re still button-pushers at heart, as becomes clear whenever the ghosts are involved — possession, it turns out, is tremendously fun when you’re young enough to be convinced that you yourself will never die. The scenes with the hand are the movie’s best, with its cool-kid owners Joss (Chris Alosio) and Hayley (Zoe Terakes) ringleading friends through rounds of supernatural experimentation as though they were all peer-pressuring each other into doing keg stands. When in control of a spirit, people’s pupils become vast black pools, voices turn creaky, and behavior becomes totally unpredictable, and while it’s eerie, it does seem harmless enough until Jade’s kid brother Riley (Joe Bird) begs for a turn and Mia pushes for him to get one.

The trouble with Mia is that to her, unlike her peers, death is real. Her mother, Rhea (Alexandria Steffensen), was found dead two years earlier in the family home from an overdose of pills, and Mia is in deep denial about the fact that it doesn’t seem to have been an accident. Remaining estranged from her father Max (Marcus Johnson), she’s become a surrogate member of Jade’s family — Miranda Otto is entertaining as the all-seeing matriarch — though Jade herself has been pulling away and focusing on a new relationship with a mutual friend named Daniel (Otis Dhanji). Wilde plays her character as a grinning goofball who’s trying hard to seem normal. But in her scenes with Jade, whom she tries to cling to, and Daniel, who was once her childhood sweetheart, there’s a yearning desperation that makes others pull away. It’s of course the possibility of contacting her mother that leads Mia to break through the barely-there guide rails the others have established and to let the spirits into her life.

Talk to Me has some solid scares and a particularly gnarly sequence involving a possession gone wrong, but it also has an understated ambivalence about the devices the characters are quick to hold up as soon as anything noteworthy looks like it might be happening. Its opening scene, a long tracking shot following a guy named Cole (Ari McCarthy) through a raucous house party to retrieve his distressed brother, finds the pair emerging from a back room to a wall of camera-phone flashes turned their way. Mia retreats into her phone for comfort instead of reaching out to her father, watching videos not just of her mom, but of closer days with Jade. When Daniel French-kisses a dog while under the control of an amorous ghost, the first thing he does when released is beg for everyone to delete the video. The film isn’t so unhip as an anti-tech treatise, but it does understand tech as a vector for teen isolation and posturing and regards it with a resignation that’s interesting, coming from two people who made a name for themselves online. Talk to Me doesn’t quite have something pointed to say about it, or anything else, but that’s okay — it’s just here to show you a good time and then usher itself out before overstaying its welcome.

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‘Talk to Me’ Is a Thrillingly Weird Horror-Movie Debut From A24

• By David Fear

Teenagers — you can’t reason with them, you can’t get them off their phones, and you definitely can’t convince them that fucking around with a cursed mummified hand that allows them to speak to the dead is a bad idea, amirite? Talk to Me, the directorial debut from Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou , starts with the premise that if a group of suburban high schoolers somehow came into contact with a mysterious body part, encased in plaster and petrified into a permanent claw, they would not turn it in to the authorities, contact a museum curator, or alert their local priest or rabbi. Instead, they would immediately treat it like the supernatural equivalent of a nitrous oxide canister, taking collective hits off of it and posting the results on social media for the lulz. These filmmakers know their audience all too well.

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Talk to Me purposefully ends on an open-ended note, suggesting not just a reversal of fate but the chance of further excursions into one hellish version of the hereafter. The Philippous have said they could envision this as a franchise for their patron saints A24, who snapped up the film after a wild Sundance premiere and a heated bidding war. (Memo to the filmmakers and the studio: Please reconsider this franchise idea. We do not need Talk X, or some eventual prequel in which we find out the origin story of Reginald Von Handerson, who once made a deal with the devil only to lose his soul and his appendage, yadda yadda yadda.) Better to think of this less as the first in a potential series and more like an extraordinary calling card — not the beginning of endless sequels but the baby step toward a long and fruitful career. As a horror movie, Talk is cheap thrills, done cleverly and with an abundance of voltage. As a proof-of-concept for what these gents can do, given some time and a couple extra gallons of Karo syrup, this is a hell of an introduction. Hands down.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Horror , Thriller

Content Caution

In Theaters

• July 28, 2023
• Sophie Wilde as Mia; Joe Bird as Riley; Alexandra Jensen as Jade; Otis Dhanji as Daniel; Miranda Otto as Sue; Marcus Johnson as Max; Alexandria Steffensen as Rhea; Zoe Terakes as Hayley; Chris Alosio as Joss; Ari McCarthy as Cole; Sunny Johnson as Duckett

Home Release Date

• October 3, 2023
• Danny Philippou; Michael Philippou

Distributor

Movie review.

Light the candle. Grab the cold, white hand.

Talk to me , you’re supposed to say. And then …

You can come in.

Such invitations are dangerous things. Vampires, it is said, require an invitation before they can enter a house—but once they’re in, they’re rarely considerate guests. Dr. Faust invited the devil himself. And in the legend’s earliest versions, the devil returns the favor—pulling Faust down for an eternal, infernal stay with him.

The dead long for the invitation. But more than that, they long to stay. To breathe. To feel. If given a chance, they’re not going to be satisfied with a 90-second possession.

But these teens are careful. They tie themselves in. They time their time. And no matter how hard the dead might strive to make the living hold that disembodied hand—hold it so tight, so hard, that the hands of the living might turn white—the grip is always broken. The candle is always snuffed. And the dead are left on the other side. Again.

But everyone has their weaknesses.

Mia has held the hand more than most. She’s let many a dead soul share space with her own.  

But then, when Riley, her best friend’s 14-year-old little brother, begs to hold the hand, he’s visited by someone he seems to know. And someone whom Mia knows painfully well.

Riley turns to Mia, tears of the dead welling in his living eyes. “Mi?” He says, using a pet name that only Mia and her mother—three years gone—ever used.

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.

Positive Elements

Whatever its other faults, Talk to Me makes it absolutely, positively clear that one should never use the occult as a party trick.

Spiritual Elements

Where did the hand come from? Its origin seems largely conjecture. The hand’s keeper (can it really have an owner ?) heard that it once was that of a powerful psychic or medium. Another heard that it was once the hand of a Satanist. Regardless, beneath whatever plaster or ceramic covers it, most believe there’s real bone and sinew.

That bone and sinew connects to the realm of the dead. Someone mentions that it’s said to be limbo, though the glimpses we see of that spiritual realm seem much worse. Someone’s “soul” is trapped there after playing with the hand, and a glimpse of him shows that he’s being pulled and smothered by the animated “dead” beings around him.

The souls that possess the living here seem, by and large, creatures now consumed with their own passions (more on that below). These beings do not seem like traditional denizens of limbo (where, in Catholic tradition, unbaptized infants and those who were good people but who died before the coming of Christ temporarily resided), but rather entities who have some very serious issues. And they’re willing to do or say anything either to stay in the land of the living or to bring the living down to them.

The hand has also become the stuff of local internet legend. Videos are shared and posted; teens watch rabidly, wondering whether the vids are real or faked. Most of the people we see in the videos seem stoned or catatonic; sometimes their eyes take on a curious, almond-like tone.

Daniel, Mia’s ex-boyfriend (and the current beau of Mia’s friend, Jade), is described as being very Christian. Jade tells her mother that he’d never do anything untoward because of his faith. And that leads her mother to say …

Sexual Content

“He still has a [penis], Jade.”

Daniel has been a gentleman with Jade. They’ve never even so much as kissed. (And Mia also recalls that when they went together, they didn’t do much more than hold hands.)

But when Daniel has his own encounter with the hand, the spirit possessing him suggests that Daniel was simply not attracted to Jade—using a variety of crude terms to convey just how much he allegedly loathes her touch. He instead ogles Mia and seems to masturbate under the spirit’s influence: The chair he’s strapped into falls over and he essentially French kisses Jade’s bulldog as he apparently works himself to near orgasm (though nothing critical is scene).

Other spirits are equally aroused. One dead thing apparently manipulates its host to suck on someone’s foot. Another possessed person leers at 14-year-old Riley, telling him how much he’d be enjoyed in whatever dead realm the possessor inhabits. (Later, a dead hand seems to stroke his cheek.)

We hear a lot of graphic conversation about sexual activities and body parts (though it seems that the teens we meet are a bit more innocent than they are in many movies). We see a teen guy who is shirtless; other teens at a pool party wear somewhat revealing swimwear. Mia and Daniel share a bed, though neither intend to do anything sexual. A frightened Riley also shares a bed with Mia in a completely platonic fashion.

Violent Content

The movie opens with us meeting, apparently, the last person who had played with the hand a little too much. He walks around in a stupor before stabbing someone in the chest. Then he takes the knife and stabs himself in the head. (We later learn, unsurprisingly, that he died.)

Another person under the influence of the hand starts pounding his head against a table and tries to yank out his own eye. This self-harm nearly kills him; later, in the hospital (and still apparently possessed), he thwacks his head against a tile wall—shattering the tile and laughing maniacally before he begins to lap up his own blood.

It might not be the first or last time that happened. The results of his self-harm have left his face and much of his body a mess: His face is a mass of injury, and when the camera glides over his forearm, we see deep bite marks—again, likely self-inflicted—covering that appendage.

The dead creatures here can also be deeply disturbing. Most seem as if they’ve been underwater for some time, with many looking bloated or decayed.

Mia and Riley come across an injured kangaroo in the road, groaning and bleeding and in a great deal of pain. Riley suggests they put it out of its misery. Mia tries, planning to run the creature over. But at the last minute she stops and drives around, hoping that another car will do the deed. As the hand pulls Mia deeper into itself, Mia begins having visions of injured, bleeding kangaroos in unexpected places.

We hear a lot about Mia’s mother, who died after taking too many sleeping pills. Mia believes it was an accident; she claims that she trapped herself in a room, and her bloody fingernails were evidence of how she tried to get out and get help.

Someone is stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors. Another person dies in a traffic accident. Blood stains the hands and clothes of people after one particularly violent encounter. Mia imagines that someone close to her attacks her and tries to kill her. Jade’s mother jokingly threatens to punch someone in the face.

Crude or Profane Language

At least 30 f-words are joined by about half as many s-words. We also hear the c-word. Other profanities include “a–,” “h—,” “b–tard. God’s name is misused at least once, and Jesus’ name is abused twice.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Alcohol is widely available and consumed at a couple of teen-centric parties. Teens drink beer and smoke as well.

But Jade and Riley—under the direction of their strict, seemingly all-knowing mother—largely steer clear of that stuff. Jade declines booze at a party (even as Mia downs a shot). And when Riley’s friend tries to get him to smoke a cigarette, he seems both curious about and frightened of it. (Mia picks him up and takes him home before his resistance crumbles.)

Jade and Riley’s mom likes Mia a lot, but she knows Mia has a more checkered past. So she sometimes quizzes Mia to make sure that her kids’ friend isn’t a bad influence on them. (Mia insists that the worst she ever did was smoke marijuana once.)

Jade’s mom has no tolerance for her own children smoking. But under stress, she lights a cigarette and tries to smoke it in her car before she’s discovered.

Other Negative Elements

As mentioned, the dead things we see will say or do most anything to get what they want—and that includes potentially masquerading as familiar, dearly departed loved ones.

People speculate that these grim beings know all of our darkest secrets once they enter their bodies. But there’s no hard evidence that  that that’s true, or they wouldn’t twist those secrets into lies.

And under their influence, people can act really horrifically, too.

A bulldog is notoriously smelly.

For all of its faults, Talk to Me is effective.

And, perhaps surprisingly, this R-rated horror flick reinforces some messages taught by the Bible from the time of Moses: Don’t mess around with the supernatural. Don’t try to talk to the dead. Don’t be sucked into the quagmire of the occult .

If it weren’t so graphic and so grotesque, you could almost imagine Talk to Me serving as a spiritual cautionary tale. Why, youth group leaders could show it to their kids and say, “See?! This is why we don’t play with Ouija boards!”

But it is so graphic. It is so grotesque. And it does exactly what it sets out to do: It scares, it disturbs, it unsettles, it horrifies.

I don’t think I need to retabulate the legion of problems in Talk to Me . Hopefully by the time you got to my description of a foot-sucking ghost, you already had pretty much all you needed to know.

You could argue that this movie is something of a cold, white hand itself. Take hold of it, and you see things you can’t unsee. And perhaps it’s wise to think twice before saying, You can come in.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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‘Talk to Me’: A horror movie with heart and gore

Indie ghost story mixes the truly shocking with moments of genuine connection

“Talk to Me” is a different kind of ghost story: one about the horrors we inflict on ourselves.

In most films of this kind, it’s the innocent victims who inspire our empathy: the family moving into a suspiciously low-priced house; the girl in the wrong place at the wrong time; the kid who just happens to encounter a malevolent entity. But “Talk to Me” places culpability for its dangers in the hands of its teenage protagonists — quite literally, in the form of a plaster hand, said to be the embalmed, severed appendage of a dead medium. By clutching it, in séance-like gatherings, its characters invite in the supernatural, well aware of the consequences. They give, in other words, informed consent. Still, they’re like children, playing with things they don’t understand.

Co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou, 30-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 Sundance, “Talk to Me” was picked up by the indie distributor A24.

The opening scene sets the tone for the movie, and it’s a brutal one. A party rages on as a young man searches frantically for his brother — anxiety intercut with swearing. His brother hasn’t been acting right, and no one else at the party seems to notice or care. When he finally finds his brother, the missing sibling is incoherent. Suddenly, the deranged man stabs his brother, then uses the weapon on his own eye.

So much for brotherly love.

This early set piece does more than hint at the film’s bloody entrails. “Talk to Me” is also a story driven by platonic love, a force that causes characters to confront danger so that they may connect with the ones they care about.

The narrative centers on Mia (Sophie Wilde), a teen still reeling from her mother’s death two years ago and growing estranged from her concerned father. In a misguided attempt to make herself feel better, she attends a party where the centerpiece is the aforementioned hand, whose origins are murky.

The rules for the spooky gathering are simple enough: 1. Pick up the hand and say “Talk to me” to commune with the dead. 2. Say “I let you in” to allow a spirit of the departed — you don’t get to choose who — to take control of your body. 3. The communion must not go on for more than 90 seconds, or there will be dire consequences. 4. You light a candle to open the door to the beyond, and blow it out to close it. 5. If you die before you’re able to close the door, “it” — the hand? the spirit? — keeps you.

The results are said to make for hilarious Snapchat videos.

It’s peer pressure and adolescent arrogance in their most basic forms, delivered with snappy dialogue that feels authentic to the Gen-Z milieu but leaves anyone with a fully developed frontal cortex wondering why this terrifying act has gained social status. But the film is also an addiction allegory of sorts.

After participating in the ritual herself — simultaneously exhilarating and unholy — Mia and a boy named Riley (Joe Bird), the brother of Mia’s best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), retreat to Jade’s place, where Mia shares what scares her, tenderly removing his Bluetooth ear buds and turning off his phone after he has fallen asleep on the couch. All three actors are exceptional, but Wilde and Bird captivate in an effortless way. Both use their bodies to elevate their performances.

It’s small, human moments like this that make the horror all the more terrifying by contrast. When the entities control these young people, forcing their bodies to contort and act in inhuman ways, the spark of their humanity is extinguished. Between shocking moments — unwitting bestiality and multiple, ghost-assisted suicide attempts — the film’s genuine notes of sibling bickering and the desire to give those you love a little peace are refreshing for a horror film.

There is no such peace for the viewer. The film is full of visceral sounds, disgusting special effects and numerous plot twists. The gore in “Talk to Me” isn’t overdone, but it is gag-inducing. According to the directors, it was achieved by using practical effects, enhanced with CGI to amplify the terror.

There’s nothing revolutionary about the premise of naive idiots attempting to get closer to death. (See: “ Flatliners ”). But it’s the ingenious combination of horror and human connection that makes “Talk to Me,” well, something to talk about.

R. At area theaters. Contains strong, bloody violence; some sexual material; and coarse language throughout. 95 minutes.

A previous version of this article misstated the ages of co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou; they are 30 rather than 29. It also included an incorrect location for the film’s premiere; it debuted at Sundance, not South by Southwest. The article has been corrected.

‘Talk to Me’ Review: Entertaining Aussie Horror Shows It’s Best Not to Chat Up the Dead

The first feature by sibling YouTube celebrities Danny and Michael Philippou is an unexpectedly straight-faced if uneven drama of supernatural peril. 

By Dennis Harvey

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“Talk to the hand” may be a popular phrase of breezy dismissal, but talking to a particular hand has terrible consequences in the Australian horror “ Talk to Me .” This directorial debut feature for twin siblings Danny and Michael Philippou belies their prior reputation as “filmmakers on a rampage” making sometimes controversially violent, bad-taste comedic videos for YouTube channel RackaRacka. It’s a determinedly non-jokey supernatural thriller in which a group of Adelaide teens get in way over their heads playing an occult party game. 

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All the above-noted adolescents go to a house party presided over by Joss (Chris Alosio) and the somewhat mean-spirited Hayley (Zoe Terakes). Those two have a trick up their sleeves: possession of a plastery-looking hand that looks like someone’s art-class sculpture project, but is supposedly the severed, embalmed extremity of “a psychic.” Yeah, right. Say a few magic words, however, and something alarming occurs: The person gripping the hand first spies some ghoulish spirit, then is “possessed” by them. No one else can see what they see, yet the freakish behavior ensuing makes for pretty spectacular, sometimes very embarrassing Snapchat posts. 

In basic concept, “Talk to Me” resembles any number of recent occult contagion/curse thrillers, as well as the likes of “Flatliners,” with young protagonists stalked from beyond by some predatory force to which they foolishly opened a portal. But the screenplay here tries to add depth to that formula by making this a film haunted not just by ghouls, but by grief: Mia desperately hopes to communicate with the late mother whose loss she can’t accept, and she is not the only character here rendered vulnerable by such longings. 

The able performers are game for fleshing out these higher-than-usual psychological stakes in a spooky movie. Their earnest efforts only go so far in giving “Talk to Me” emotional weight, though, when its balance of melodrama, somber mood and fantasy is relatively smooth in directorial execution but wobbly in scripted terms. 

The whole “hand” thing is left an enigma, which is fair enough. But the storytelling is otherwise too literal-minded to remain so vague about it. Leaving blank not just the question of where it came from, but who/what the evil spirits are, whether there’s any method to their madness, if they can transfer from one body to another, and so on, leaves eventual plot twists more confusing than ingenious. An ironic ending is nicely done, yet would have more punch if it didn’t muddy those waters even further. 

Still, the main complaint here is that the elements are in place for “Talk to Me” to be truly creepy, shocking and mind-bending — it’s just a disappointment they’re not quite smartly executed enough to be all that, as opposed to merely entertaining. As recent mainstream-ish horror entries go, that result is still a cut above average. Welcome resistance to rote jump-scares and a sleek, handsome visual aesthetic, along with solidly professional package contributions down the line, suggest the Philippous are fast learners who’ve already put their prankster days behind them. 

Reviewed online, Jan. 18, 2023. (In Sundance Film Festival — Midnight. Also in Berlin, SXSW.) Running time: 95 MIN.

• Production: (Australia) A Screen Australia presentation in association with South Australian Film Corp., Adelaide Film Festival, Head Gear Films, Metrol Technology, Bankside Films of a Causeway Films production. (World sales: Bankside Films, London.) Producers: Samantha Jennings, Kristina Ceyton. Executive producers: Stephen Kelliher, Sophie Green, Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Daniel Negret, Noah Dummett, John Dummett, Jeff Harrison, Ari Harrison, Miranda Otto, Dale Roberts, Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou. Co-producer, Christopher Seeto.
• Crew: Directors: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou. Screenplay: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman, based on a concept by Daley Pearson. Camera: Aaron McLisky. Editor: Geoff Lam. Music: Cornel Wilczek. 
• With: Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji, Miranda Otto, Zoe Terakes, Chris Alosio, Marcus Johnson, Alexandria Steffensen, Ari McCarthy. 

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Talk to Me (Australia, 2022)

It’s in vogue to call some horror films “throwbacks,” but, at least in the case of Danny and Michael Philippou’s directorial debut, Talk to Me , it’s an accurate assessment. In recent years, the horror trend has been for “safer” movies – those that offer quick scares at the expense of the deeply-rooted sense of terror an unease that alienates sensitive viewers. Talk to Me recalls a time when the term “horror” was entirely appropriate. It is uncompromising, both in the way it travels a seemingly inevitable trajectory and relies on practical effects (rather than CGI) to present gruesome imagery. Talk to Me isn’t for the faint of heart. It isn’t for those who believe horror movies can easily be shaken off. And it isn’t for those who aren’t willing to pay attention and allow the film’s unsettling aesthetic to seep into one’s bones.

The film transpires in Adelaide, Australia, the filmmakers’ hometown. It opens with a prologue presented an unbroken tracking shot that invades a house party and features a bloody ending. It then shifts to the main plot, which features different characters than those highlighted in the first four minutes. The protagonist is Mia (Sophie Wilde), a young woman still trying to cope with the suicide of her mother – an event that happened two years ago. With her father having become distant and withdrawn, she has been “adopted” by the family of her best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and treats Jade’s younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird), as she might her own sibling. Jade’s mother, Sue (Miranda Otto), welcomes Mia into her home with unqualified affection.

With a limited budget, the Philippous rely on “old-time” special effects rather than computerized graphics. This enhances the movie’s dark, nihilistic atmospherics, which represent the strongest element of the production. This no horror-comedy; it lands squarely on the serious side of the genre. From the suffering, dying kangaroo lying in the middle of the road to a brutal instance of shocking violence, Talk to Me doesn’t skimp on the hard-core elements of non-slasher horror.

Although the bare bones of the story rely on familiar tropes from possession-type films, the filmmakers imprint their own stamp on things by including some interesting elements and keeping things grounded. The decision to blur “objective reality” with Mia’s perspective of events, which are often colored by visions manufactured by demonic entities, mandates attentive viewing. We’re never quite sure whether the apparition representing Mia’s mother, Rhea (Alexandria Steffensen), is a genuine spirit or a demon in disguise, and the Philippous don’t feel the need to talk down to us. That level of trust in the viewer is emblematic of Talk to Me , which offers a different brand of horror than what has become customary in multiplexes. If successful, it may usher in additional films from the director-brothers.

Comments Add Comment

• Halloween (1978)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• Blair Witch Project, The (1999)
• Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
• Captivity (2007)
• Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
• (There are no more better movies of Sophie Wilde)
• (There are no more worst movies of Sophie Wilde)
• (There are no more better movies of Alexandra Jensen)
• (There are no more worst movies of Alexandra Jensen)
• (There are no more better movies of Joe Bird)
• (There are no more worst movies of Joe Bird)

The Unrelenting Grief of Talk to Me

A24's latest horror foray is one of the scariest films of the year, but there's something deeply resonant underneath its tried-and-true genre tropes.

Well, Danny and Michael Philippou —Australian YouTubers who make their directorial debuts in Talk to Me — throw us into the middle of a high school house party. We see the familiar pounding of electronic music and teenagers drunkenly stumbling over each other. The camera focuses on the back of our desperate protagonist, Cole (Ari McCarthy), who is searching for his brother, Duckett (Sunny Johnson). Finally, we settle in on a locked door, and Duckett is on the other side. Cole bangs on the door. That doesn't work. He smashes his shoulder on it. Still no luck. Then, Cole kicks it down. What lies within the room? Are we ready to see it?

Throughout Talk to Me , I kept coming back to this moment—which, it turns out, foreshadows the dark crux of the film : How do we reach out to our lost loved ones, when they’ve closed themselves off to us, locked the door, and thrown away the key?

Known for their chaotic YouTube videos , the Philippou brothers' first feature effort shows off a surprisingly deft ability to balance emotional weight with well-calculated scares. After Talk to Me 's world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, those who saw the movie immediately labeled it as the scariest film of the year. Critics gave Talk to Me just about every superlative in the horror-movie lexicon. (" Talk to Me delivers an intense, nightmarish horror movie that’ll leave you breathless.") But walk into Talk To Me expecting scares and gore on the level of Hereditary or X, and you’ll be disappointed. Really, the film delivers its best thrills when the emotional drama is dialed up to the max—and the blood and guts are dialed back.

This is painfully evident from Talk To Me ’s first scene, which pulses with narrative intent. When Cole finally makes it to his brother, we know that something isn’t right. He argues with Duckett, who is seemingly catatonic, speaking in cryptic, disturbing phrases. Cole shields his brother from the barrage of iPhone-wielding teens—who are more interested in recording the situation than stepping in to help. Before the brothers can reconcile or escape, Duckett grabs a knife, stabs his brother, and kills himself. With an inexplicable act of violence between two brothers—Cole trying to save Duckett, and Duckett overcome with demonic rage— Talk to Me immediately begins to elevate itself from a simple possession story to a gut-wrenching tale about the crippling loneliness of grief.

It's a natural segue into another family tragedy: the introduction of Mia (Sophie Wilde), a young girl who is struggling to understand her mother’s sudden death—and her father’s ensuing depression. Mia’s loneliness bleeds through the screen; we only see her light up when she spends time with her friends Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Riley (Joe Bird). The three go to a party, where everyone's playing a game, if you can even call it that: grabbing an embalmed hand, saying "talk to me,” and welcoming spirits into your body. But the possessions should never go over 90 seconds. The hand, rumored to be the dismembered appendage of a powerful medium, is a red herring—and we quickly learn that it's not nearly the scariest thing in Talk to Me.

Eventually, it's Mia's turn to grab the hand, which gives her visions of decaying corpses. But her brush with these spirits quickly turns physical. They contort Mia’s face and blow out her pupils until her eyes go completely black. When doors slam open and disembodied voices ring from the rest of the teens' mouths, everyone is downright thrilled . Even Mia, who is downright joyful after her ghostly encounter. Wilde skillfully portrays Mia’s turn from fragile and forlorn to giddy and enthralled by this dark thrill. It’s hard to keep your eyes off her—just like all the other kids in the room, who eagerly record her every move. Like Duckett, Mia finally found her escape.

A group of teens playing dangerous with a ghostly conduit? It's hardly a brand-new convention. Still, Talk to Me feels fresh, due to the emotionally grounded performances of its young cast, and how the Philippous continuously raise the stakes on the consequences of their characters’ horrendous choices. By chasing the high she gets from communing with the dead, Mia avoids confronting the painful truth about her mother's death and reconciling with her father. When she finally contacts the spirit of whom she thinks is her mother—communicating through a possessed Riley—she goes past the 90-second safety window, which causes the young boy to beat himself nearly to death.

But Talk to Me 's biggest scares aren’t the few scenes of violence, Mia’s ghoulish mother, or even Mia's nightmarish vision of undead bodies torturing Riley’s soul while he lies comatose in the hospital. The true horror is watching Mia, in her loneliness and desperation, fall victim to the voices telling her to hurt the ones who love and care for her. Blood and guts may exhilarate you, but the Philippous know that it's the secret wounds that keep you up at night. They gladly sink their embalmed hand into those sore spots and don't let go.

@media(max-width: 73.75rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.4375rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.5625rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}} Movies

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Talk To Me Review

Twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou cut their teeth making YouTube videos bearing titles like ‘Real Life Mortal Kombat Fatalities!’ and ‘Ronald McDonald Playground Slaughter!’. Talk To Me , their first feature film, sensibly tones down the manic clickbait silliness of their web browser-based origins. Working from a story by Daley Pearson — Darryl from Thor: Love And Thunder — and a script by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, the approach here is impressively measured. Even if they don’t always escape the obvious route, the brothers handle the tone with a mature hand — while keeping a capacity for serious spooks.

The first shock comes within seconds, in fact, in a breathless pre-titles sequence shot bluntly and sharply. In essentially a single take, a house party full of teenagers ends in a tragedy: the cinematic equivalent of a glass of cold water to the face. It’s nasty, uncomfortable stuff, efficiently setting the stage with a warning: there will be more violent rug-pulls to come.

There is an emotional backbone to the film, a sense of helpless grief bubbling throughout before erupting at the end.

The filmmakers then take a bit of a breath, introducing us to characters seemingly unrelated to the prologue. Our lead is Mia (an excellent Sophie Wilde), who we come to understand only recently buried her mother, and is temporarily living with friends Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Riley (Joe Bird), plus their tough but loving mother (Miranda Otto, always reliable). The first act seems to be playing to its teenage audience, interested chiefly in the ancient adolescent dynamics of exes, parties and peer pressure.

Then it kicks into genre gear: Mia and pals attend a party, where a mysterious hand is all the rage as a means of illicit late-night communings with the supernatural. Simply say the words, “Talk to me,” seal it with a handshake, and a spirit (or demon?) possesses you for all of a minute-and-a-half. Any longer, and things could go horribly wrong. (Surely nothing could go wrong, right?) It plays like a Gen-Z Flatliners , kids getting high on the otherworld — now also motivated by social-media clout — before the supernatural starts creeping into the natural.

While it is undeniably Australian — a haunted, bloody kangaroo sporadically stalks the frame — there’s a lot of the American horror tradition here: the Rick Baker-esque practical effects and make-up; swift-footed, Sam Raimi-ish camerawork; terrible decisions made by naive teenagers; the occasional but effective jump scare; and plenty of trau-ma , as Jamie Lee Curtis would put it.

There is an emotional backbone to the film, a sense of helpless grief bubbling throughout before erupting at the end, like a bloodletting. But it is refreshingly simple and forthright in its mission: this is also just a horror interested in being scary, which holds its own merit, even in the so-called ‘elevated horror’ era. It doesn’t quite sustain the feverish energy, with a third act that sags and has the odd plot-hole, and demons which aren’t as impactful as the earlier suggestions of them. But it leaves you with a heck of a ferocious finale. From ‘Ronald McDonald Playground Slaughter!’ to this — quite the trajectory.

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A riveting look at the life of legendary DJ "Petey" Greene, Talk to Me goes beyond the typical biopic with explosive performances from Don Cheadle and Chiwetal Ejiofor.

Critics Reviews

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Kasi Lemmons

Don Cheadle

Ralph "Petey" Greene

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Dewey Hughes

Taraji P. Henson

Martin Sheen

E.G. Sonderling

Cedric the Entertainer

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Cheadle shines in radio icon biopic. Not for kids.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Petey is rude and crude, drinks and smokes to exce

A fight in the office includes punching; report of

Vernell repeatedly wears short, cleavage-enhancing

Frequent and varied language, including "f--k" (at

References to and images of popular figures of the

Frequent cigarette smoking and drinking (in bar sc

Parents need to know that this biopic about controversial '60s radio host Petey Greene isn't for kids. Though Greene is often very funny, the film focuses on the sources of his comedy: his anger at oppressive systems of class and racism. Expect lots of sexual references and sexy outfits (a couple of scenes, while not…

Positive Messages

Petey is rude and crude, drinks and smokes to excess, and repeatedly resists authority (even claiming to have stolen silverware fro the White House); still, he embodies a moral code, speaking truth to power.

Violence & Scariness

A fight in the office includes punching; report of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination leads to riots in D.C. streets (fires, looting, car explosion).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Vernell repeatedly wears short, cleavage-enhancing outfits (she calls it "Foxy-ed up," as in the movie character Foxy Brown); she visits Petey in prison in the "booty line," removes her bra from beneath her shirt and hands it to Dewey in public, and engages in deep kissing in public places. Sexual language includes repeated uses of "d--k," "pimp," and other phrases ("What you got in your boxers?"). A naked man appears on the prison rooftop (not explicit, but plain enough). Vernell catches Petey having sex with another woman (naked buttocks visible) and gets very upset, revealing a sexual liaison with Petey's coworker (it takes place off-screen, but she flaunts it).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent and varied language, including "f--k" (at least 35 times, sometimes with "mother-"), "damn," "s--t" (25+), "ass," "b--ch," "hell," "p--sy," as well as repeated uses of the n-word (at least 25 times) and a string of anti-white slang ("honky," "ofay," "peckerwood," "cracker").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

References to and images of popular figures of the day, including Foxy Brown, Berry Gordy, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Sam Cooke, Bette Midler, Johnny Carson, "Mr. Tibbs" (from In the Heat of the Night ), etc.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Frequent cigarette smoking and drinking (in bar scenes and elsewhere); Petey appears staggering drunk at a concert he's meant to emcee (he vomits) and is also drunk for his appearance on The Tonight Show ; allusions to drug abuse; Petey looks ill at the end, coughing harshly (apparently the result of his many years abusing drugs, liquor, and cigarettes).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this biopic about controversial '60s radio host Petey Greene isn't for kids. Though Greene is often very funny, the film focuses on the sources of his comedy: his anger at oppressive systems of class and racism. Expect lots of sexual references and sexy outfits (a couple of scenes, while not explicit, also show some lively writhing). A fight (punching and falling) between rivals ends when Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination is announced; a brief sequence following shows street rioting (looting, flames, explosion). Language is super spicy and includes lots of uses of both "f--k" and the "N" word (spoken by African-American characters). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

TALK TO ME chronicles the career of controversial Washington, D.C., radio personality Petey Greene ( Don Cheadle ), an ex-convict who described himself as "a 'N'-word in America telling it like it is, telling the truth." From prison, Petey convinces station manager Dewey Hughes ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ) to hire him as a DJ. Petey arrives at the radio station determined to prove himself. Though Dewey's boss ( Martin Sheen ) has doubts, Petey draws listeners, uniting the community and becoming a local hero. At the same time, Petey's personal life suffers from his excessive use of alcohol and drug. Though Dewey encourages him to greater and greater visibility, Petey rejects going mainstream because he sees constraints in performing to audiences outside his community. At last he has a profound moment, seeing before him an expectant "room full of white folks" who want to see him make fun of his background. He makes a fateful decision that the film represents as a mixture of disappointment and resistance.

Is It Any Good?

Kasi Lemmons 's smart, enthralling TALK TO ME shows that Greene was at once inspired and troubled, ambitious and self-destructive. Greene makes his difficult decision in a what is a fittingly complicated scene that showcases both Greene's and Cheadle's brilliance.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the accuracy of biopics. Do you think movies based on true stories (particularly one person's life) generally stick to the facts? Why would filmmakers change details? How could you find out what really happened and what might have been exaggerated? Families can also discuss what Petey's commentary has in common with the later humor of comics like Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle. What function does envelope-pushing "shock" comedy serve in society?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 12, 2007
• On DVD or streaming : October 30, 2007
• Cast : Chiwetel Ejiofor , Don Cheadle , Taraji P. Henson
• Director : Kasi Lemmons
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Black directors, Black actors, Female actors
• Studio : Focus Features
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 118 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : pervasive language and some sexual content.
• Last updated : June 20, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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• GOMORRA LA SERIE
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• IL TRONO DI SPADE
• LA VERITà SUL CASO HARRY QUEBERT
• MATRIMONIO A PRIMA VISTA
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Talk to Me: tra spettri e cellulari, l’adolescenza è un horror. La recensione del film

Paolo Nizza

Arriva in prima visione su Rai 4 alle 21:20 di Mercoledì 15 maggio,  l’opera prima dei celebrati youtuber australiani Danny e Michael Philippou è un perturbante, crudele viaggio alla scoperta di quanto sia difficile e terrificante essere adolescenti oggi tra dipendenza, dolore, e solitudine 

“Noi esseri umani che siamo? Spettri, impalpabile ombra” Cosi scriveva Sofocle nell’Aiace. E anche Talk to Me p arla di fantasmi. E in fondo l’esordio cinematografico dei gemelli Danny e Michael Philippou è una tragedia greca mascherata da film horror. Dai produttori del capolavoro Babadook , griffato A24, la nota casa di produzione e distribuzione che ha trionfato agli Oscar 2023 con Everything Everywhere All at Once  ,Talk To Me  arriva in prima tv su Rai 4 alle 21:20 di Mercoledì 15 maggio. La pellicola chiude la rassegna dedicata al Dark Thriller

"Mai giudicare un libro dalla copertina ", come diceva il maître à pens er in  guêpière Frank-N-Furter. Perché a un primo, distratto, sguardo, il lungometraggio potrebbe essere l’ennesimo, esangue, dozzinale prodotto per teen da guardare distrattamente, mentre ci si messaggia su whatsapp o si naviga, svogliati alla ricerca di un video virale su Tik Tok. Insomma, non si tratta della consueta combriccola di giovinastri ottusi, dopati e alticci, che evoca per gioco l’esotico demone pagano con conseguente carneficina in computer graphic e uso indiscriminato e illegale di jumpscare . Invece, senza salire in cattedra, schivando il moralismo d’accatto, i due registi attraverso una storia spaventosa e sovrannaturale, fotografano con stile ed efficacia la realtà in cui viviamo. Aveva ragione il grande Lucio Fulci: "L'horror (quando è fatto bene n.d.a.) è soprattutto un cinema di idee. "

Talk to Me, la trama del film

L’incipit di Talk to Me è un killing joke (uno scherzo che uccide). Grazie a un piano da sequenza da applausi, il  film ci trasporta nella più scontate delle signorili ville con piscine dove ha luogo l’ancora più corrivo, tra droga, sesso (ma senza rock’n roll9 che hai giovani non piace più) Il teatro della deboscia presto muta in una scena del crimine. Un ragazzo di nome Duckett, seminudo, sbarella nel bagno e farnetica frasi privi di senso. I compagni di bisboccia, ça va sans dire, immortalano il delirio dello svalvolato, che manco i paparazzi in Via Veneto ai tempi della Dolce Vita. Solo Cole, il fratello maggiore cerca di soccorere il fratellino in pieno bad trip. Ma è troppo tardi. La Nera Signora segna un'altra tacca sul suo fucile. Il ragazzino prima accoltella il soccorritore e poi si suicida stile Edipo quando si accecò per espiare la sua colpa. Dissolvenza al nero ed ecco che i palesa il titolo del film. E siamo in una situazione diametralmente opposta  

approfondimento

Talk to me, cosa sapere sul film horror più spaventoso dell'anno, la cognizione del dolore.

Ora la protagonista è Mia (Sophie Wilde) una ragazza di 17 anni. È l’anniversario della morte si sua madre. Come succede in quasi tutti il film horror di questi ultimi la anni, la ragazza non riesce a comunicare con il padre, perennemente depresso. ça va sans dire L’unica soluzione per anestetizzare il dolore e la disperazione e fuggire per raggiungere la casa della sua migliore amica Jade.

Quando un video di una possessione spiritica su Snapchat diventa virale a scuola, Mia scorge l’opportunità di attirare l’attenzione di Jade, la quale ormai ha occhi solo per Daniel, che è stato il primo ragazzo di Mia quando erano bambini. Mia convince Jade e Daniel a unirsi a lei durante la successiva evocazione spiritica. Quando i loro amici tirano fuori una mano di ceramica ricavata dal braccio imbalsamato di una medium e la usano per farsi possedere dagli spiriti, i ragazzi trovano immediatamente il loro nuovo sballo. L’unica regola del gioco è esorcizzare lo spirito entro 90 secondi, altrimenti lo spirito cercherà di restare. Arriva il turno di Mia di pronunciare la fatidica frase “Parla con me”, e subito la giovane viene posseduta da un’entità assai volgare che assume il controllo del suo corpo. Mia è elettrizzata: non si sentiva così viva da molto tempo e rimane totalmente affascinata da questa esperienza. Ma bisogna sempre avere paura di quello che si desidera. E quella mano aprirà la porta dell’inferno per la ragazza e i suoi amici

Talk to Me, il trailer del nuovo film horror targato A24

La solitudine ai tempi dei social.

"La solitudine che gli angeli non conoscono" (la citazione è di Cechov) è invece la fedele e implacabile compagna dei giovani protagonisti d i Talk to Me . Forti degli 1,5 miliardi di visualizzazioni su YouTube (il loro canale si chiama RACKARACKA,) conoscono gli adolescenti e il loro mondo, le loro inquietudini. Infatti, il film rappresenta uno dei pochissimo film horror in cui giovani attori non recitano come  adulti che scimmiottano il linguaggio dei ragazzi. E bastano un paio di sequenze horror, davvero crudeli, potenti e ben realizzate per terrorizzare il pubblico. Sarà una banalità, ma il troppo stroppia perché non è aumentando cadaveri de l Body Count che si amplifica la paura. Senza questa precisione chirurgica nel raccontare un mondo in cui nessuno comunica (in questo senso il titolo del lungometraggio è davvero geniale) ma tutti fotografano, sbertucciano e sono terrorizzati di essere cringe, la pellicola sarebbe risulta innocua se non addirittura risibile. Anche perché la mano imbalsamata possiede meno allure wicca della famosa tavoletta

Mimì - Il principe delle tenebre, la recensione del film horror

Noi stessi siamo i nostri demoni.

 I due gemelli sono già al lavoro su un prequel di Talk To M e. Ed è un’ottima notizia per un genere in cui la fotocopia, spesso e volentieri, impazza. L’elaborazione del lutto, la cognizione del dolore, la dittatura dei social, la dipendenza per sfuggire alla sofferenza abitano come spettri questo horror sorprendente e alieno, per fortuna allo sberleffo, all’(auto)ironia di grana grossa, all’overdose bulimica di metacinema, che solo maestri del calibro di Wes Craven possono permettersi. Certo, le citazioni, gli omaggi, le fonti di ispirazione non mancano: da Nightmare a It Follows, da The Ring a The Grudge, ma non sono mai proposte con la spocchia e la superficialità di chi, in fondo pensa che il cinema horror sia un genere minore, di serie B.  Con cautela, in punta di piedi, come un fantasma che ti sussurra nell’orecchio, il film ha l’ardire di prendersi sul serio, pur scherzando con il bric brac dello spiritismo d’antan. Non siano di fronte al Munbo Jumbo evocato da Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) in La Nona port a. L’opera, invece, ci pone l’annoso dilemma se ci si debba fidare dei vivi o dei morti. E soprattutto ci rammenta l’aforisma di Goethe: “Noi siamo i nostri propri demoni, ci espelliamo dal nostro paradiso”.

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Anya Taylor-Joy Still Can’t Make Sense of What She Went Through

Playing the title character in “Furiosa,” the 28-year-old star says, “I’ve never been more alone than making that movie.”

Anya Taylor-Joy found herself sobbing while watching “Furiosa” in an early cut: “I adored a person that I could not protect. There were forces greater than me.” Credit... Ariel Fisher for The New York Times

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By Kyle Buchanan

Reporting from Los Angeles

• May 12, 2024

There’s nothing normal about making a “Mad Max” movie, and Anya Taylor-Joy knew that when she signed on to star in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” the newest film in George Miller’s long-running action series.

“I wanted to be changed,” she said. “I wanted to be put in a situation in extremis where I would have no choice but to grow. And I got it.”

Trials by fire don’t burn much hotter than the conflagration that consumed “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), the most recent film in the franchise, which was one of the most infamously difficult productions in Hollywood history . In the works for nearly two decades, the movie was shut down several times by studio executives, who feared they were producing a big-budget boondoggle. And the constant clashes between Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, two of its stars, in the remote Namibian desert required outside intervention.

Despite all of those headwinds, “Fury Road” was hailed upon its release as one of the greatest action films ever made; it would go on to win six Oscars and net a spot on many critics’ best-of-the-decade lists. Its success paved the way for the prequel “Furiosa,” in theaters May 24, which casts the 28-year-old Taylor-Joy as a younger version of Theron’s iconic warrior woman.

Plucked from her idyllic home by bandits, Furiosa grows up shuttled between two captors, the gabby psychopath Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and the hulking warlord Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme). Furiosa faces constant danger on both sides, and she strives to survive long enough to escape, keen to exact revenge on those who have taken everything from her.

Though Theron still casts a long shadow, Taylor-Joy stakes her claim on the role with a formidable ferocity: Under the grease that Furiosa smears on her face like war paint, the actress’s distinctive wide-set eyes blaze bright with righteous anger. To make Furiosa her own, she allowed herself to be put through an emotional and physical wringer for six and a half months. How did she feel in late 2022, when she finally wrapped the arduous production?

“Like I knew I was going to need the two years that it took for the movie to come out to deal with it,” she said.

THE RELEASE OF “FURIOSA” will put Taylor-Joy’s nascent stardom to its biggest test. Though she has worked steadily since her film breakthrough in “ The Witch ” (2016), her profile rose precipitously four years ago when she starred as a chess prodigy in Netflix’s hit limited series “ The Queen’s Gambit .” A surprise cameo in this year’s “Dune: Part Two” placed her in the company of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Florence Pugh — three of the very few actors under 30 who are considered bankable movie stars — and served as proof that Hollywood hopes to add Taylor-Joy to that gilded A-list.

In late April, I met her for lunch at the rooftop restaurant of a Beverly Hills hotel. Poised but chatty, Taylor-Joy was animated by an actor’s watchful curiosity. She asked me nearly as many questions as I asked her, and whenever my turns of phrase or tossed-off hand gestures caught her fancy, she’d repeat and refine them, doing me better than I did myself. One of Taylor-Joy’s gifts as a performer is that precision: She trained as a ballet dancer until she was 15, and she knows how to hit a mark.

“I feel most alive on a set when I can perfectly match an emotion to something technical and kind of become this blend between organic and machine,” she said.

Her consummate awareness of the camera can even be seen off the set. While I was on the Oscar red carpet this year, I watched Taylor-Joy pose for the E! channel’s Glambot — a slow-motion camera that swooped around her at high speed — and as she turned and flicked her long platinum hair, her eyes tracked the camera with such exactitude that it was almost fearsome.

“I’ve always had this theory that there’s a difference between an actor and a movie star,” said the director Edgar Wright, who worked with Taylor-Joy on “ Last Night in Soho ” (2021) and recommended her to Miller for the “Furiosa” role. “An actor can disappear completely, but a movie star can do that and also have awareness of the camera in the same way that Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo or Cary Grant would. Anya has a lot of that old-school Hollywood star wattage about her.”

Those skills served her well on “Furiosa,” which asked more of her than she had ever given to a role. “My characters are all real for me,” she said. “The level of protection I feel for them never changes: I defend, to a fault, their interest.” The characters in the movie were constantly pushed to their breaking points, and the shoot, in Australia, required Taylor-Joy and her co-stars to inhabit a very intense space for long periods of time with little reprieve.

“What you’re being asked to dig into and display emotionally is exhausting,” said Hemsworth, who praised Taylor-Joy for rising to the challenge. “I found what she did inspiring because she was there every single day for months on end and was as fiercely protective of the character as you’d want.”

Still, Taylor-Joy told me that championing Furiosa often felt like a solitary experience.

“I’ve never been more alone than making that movie,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard.”

Her reticence reminded me of when I first spoke to the actors who had made “Fury Road”: During that shoot, the desperation of the characters bled into their real lives, and unpacking that experience took a very long time. Sensing that she was skirting a sensitive issue, I asked Taylor-Joy what exactly it was about “Furiosa” that had proved more difficult than she expected. For five long seconds, she contemplated giving me an answer.

“Next question, sorry,” she said. There was a faraway look in her eyes, as if a part of her had been left behind in that wasteland. “Talk to me in 20 years,” she said. “Talk to me in 20 years.”

NOT LONG AFTER filming “The Witch,” Taylor-Joy, who is part Argentine, was in Buenos Aires hanging out with a friend when his older brother showed up astride a memorably cool Ducati. When the brother caught Taylor-Joy eyeing his motorbike, he offered to let her ride it.

“I actually rode pretty well,” she told me. “It was only that I couldn’t get it to start without sputtering, so I really went for it and I crashed into a tree.” She tapped a faint scar on her knee. “Got this guy.”

That crash gave Taylor-Joy an emotional hurdle to get past during her year of prep for “Furiosa,” which included extensive motorcycle riding, strength training and stunt driving. (That she still hasn’t gotten her driver’s license lent a frisson to the work, too.) She initially feared that mastering the action choreography would be the hardest part of making “Furiosa” — after all, “Fury Road” had some of the most intimidating stunt sequences ever put to film — but found, much to her surprise, that it was the ideal fit for her perfectionism.

With action choreography, “you can get it kind of right, you can get it almost right, or you can get it right, ” she said, “and I want to get it right every single time.” The feeling of tangible improvement after each take had her hooked: “When my analytical brain is firing in that way, I just feel so alive and purposeful.”

The film’s action sequence centerpiece, a dramatic raid on the War Rig, where Furiosa has hidden herself, required 197 shots that took the entire span of production to complete. With all of those action beats on the schedule — most of them seconds-long shots in which Taylor-Joy was climbing, driving, ducking and fighting — did weeks go by on set when she never spoke a single line?

“Months,” she said. And some of the limits placed on her performance initially threw her.

“I do want to 100 percent preface this by saying I love George and if you’re going to do something like this, you want to be in the hands of someone like George Miller,” she said. “But he had a very, very strict idea of what Furiosa’s war face looked like, and that only allowed me my eyes for a large portion of the movie. It was very much ‘mouth closed, no emotion, speak with your eyes.’ That’s it, that’s all you have.”

To hear Miller tell it, that sort of stillness was meant to pack a mythological punch.

“If you look at the classic, almost inevitably male heroes — going back to John Wayne and Clint Eastwood — they’re usually very laconic,” he said, adding that the mute performances delivered by Holly Hunter in “The Piano” and Jane Wyman in “Johnny Belinda” won both of them Oscars. “When you’ve got someone with a lot going on and they’re silent, the audience is getting ahold of a lot of stuff. It’s that thing that you can really only do in cinema.”

Taylor-Joy took Miller’s point but still felt Furiosa was owed an eruption. “I am a really strong advocate of female rage,” she said, noting that in too many films, female characters are made to endure all manner of hardships while crying only a single delicate tear.

“We’re animals, and there’s a point where somebody just snaps,” she said. “There’s one scream in that movie, and I am not joking when I tell you that I fought for that scream for three months.”

While making “Fury Road,” Theron waged a similar campaign on behalf of the character, arguing that when Furiosa was brought to her lowest point, it demanded some sort of cathartic outburst. Miller eventually granted that wish, and the result — a scene improvised by Theron in which Furiosa falls to her knees and lets out a primal scream — gave the film one of its most iconic moments. When I brought that negotiation up to Taylor-Joy, she nodded.

“With George, it’s a long game,” Taylor-Joy said. “You plant the seed day one, you leave it for a bit, then you check on it.” Once, she debated a character choice with such intensity that her voice broke in front of Miller and she started to cry. “He was like, ‘You care so much, it’s beautiful.’ And I was like, ‘I’m trying to tell you something!’”

Still, one of her primary goals was to make sure the 79-year-old director always felt respected.

“I wanted to make sure that I was never insolent in any way, that it was always a conversation,” she said. “At the end of the day, this is his vision. I can present everything that I have, but his word goes.”

WHEN A PROJECT challenges Taylor-Joy, there is always something that lingers. Years after making “The Queen’s Gambit,” she still finds the notion of playing chess with a friend too fraught to contemplate. As we ate lunch, she wondered how long it might take to truly gain perspective on the ways “Furiosa” had changed her.

“I will never regret this experience, on so many different levels, but it’s a very particular story to have,” she said. “There’s not everyone in the world that has made a ‘Mad Max’ movie, and I swear to God, everyone that I’ve met that has, there’s a look in our eyes: We know . There’s an immediate kinship of like, ‘OK, hey, I see you.’”

Someday, she hopes to talk all this over with Theron. “We saw each other very, very briefly at the Oscars, and she’s wonderful,” Taylor-Joy said. “But we are due a sit-down, hash-it-out dinner.”

And then there’s the matter of the movie itself.

“I’m curious, once I watch it, if I’ll ever be able to watch it again,” she told me. At the time of our interview, all she had seen was an early, black-and-white cut before all the special effects had been added, and even watching that was an emotional experience: “Two minutes in and I’m sobbing.”

What had set her off? “I adored a person that I could not protect,” she said simply. “There were forces greater than me.”

In some ways, Taylor-Joy said, she still carries Furiosa with her, noting that she came away from the film “being able to advocate for myself more. Some of the protection and love I felt toward her, I’ve carried into my actual life.” But she has also been keen to start drawing a bolder line between her characters and herself.

“I’ve spent 10 years making other people real,” she said. “I’d been able to sort of barrel through life, throwing experiences in a backpack and constantly thinking, ‘Well, I can’t deal with this right now because I have to service her . And again, this seems to keep coming up in this interview, but I was like, ‘I am a machine right now. I just run. You put me in the cupboard for four hours and you take me out in the morning and then I go and I do the thing.’”

The actors’ strike last year forced Taylor-Joy to finally sit down and contend with her own wants. “I was like, ‘What do I do for fun? What is it that I enjoy?’” she said. So she has applied herself to the role of really living, whether that’s picking up a love of basketball — she gushed about a Knicks game she had just gone to with her husband, the musician and actor Malcolm McRae — or riding go-karts a couple of miles from Griffith Park to the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank.

“I realized that I don’t necessarily need rest as long as I constantly have something to marvel at,” she said. A recent trip to Yosemite gave her plenty to think about: “What is it about just climbing a mountain and then climbing another mountain and then climbing another mountain that feels so honest and deeply profound?”

I wondered if maybe it gave her the sort of real-life challenge that she is drawn to in her work, where you push up against things you thought you couldn’t do and then, upon accomplishing them, realize you’ve grown stronger than you thought you were. The look on her face told me she was fine with not knowing yet. Maybe I’ll ask her again in 20 years.

Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist , the awards season columnist for The Times. More about Kyle Buchanan

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