Talk to Me (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Talk to Me (2022) – D. Philippou & M. Philippou

Not for the squeamish.  Australian horror film with high concept premise: when you hold the severed hand of a dead medium and utter the title phrase, horrible spirits from limbo are able to enter and control your body.  The film’s teen protagonists treat this experience as a sort of party drug (and clearly that’s the central metaphor here) with the same sort of unpredictable (and often dire) outcomes. Often unbelievably tense – and bloody – and perhaps veering toward the torture porn films that I’ve successfully avoided (i.e., Saw franchise). Sophie Wilde plays Mia, the unstable girl who has recently lost her mother and who gets sucked into the world of the severed hand.  She’s more-or-less adopted by the central family here, headed by single mum (?), Miranda Otto. Although the film falters a bit in its final act (messing with us about what is or is not real), things mostly stay coherent as we hurtle to the inevitable final scene.  Great premise though.