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Talk to Me

This might be the scariest thing to come out of Adelaide since Wayne Weidemann. It's directed by brothers, Danny and Michael Phillipou, who apparently gained some fame and notoriety via a YouTube channel called RackaRacka, which sounds like it was a bogan version of Jackass.

Talk to Me is a stylishly unsettling possession genre flick, with a couple of great performances attached. Future star, Sophie Wilde plays Mia, a final year high-school student still struggling with the death of her mother two years ago. Bored one night (remember, it's Adelaide), she tags along with her friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird) to a house party where a couple of twats are hosting a séance/possession event.

Mia gets involved but the 'rules' state the spirits can only be inside the living body for 90 seconds, else the fuckers might want to stay. Righto, parameters set then. The film really gets going when Riley appears to be channelling Mia's mum for a moment, followed by someone (something?) more sinister that tips him over the time limit. This scene amped up the shock levels and was pretty uncomfortable viewing.

For the Aussies who see this, I reckon the mundanity of the setting and the familiarity of the accents (not to mention a nearly roadkill kangaroo) bring an element of reality to an otherwise ridiculous story. Like any good horror film, the spooky shit is just cover for the real story, in this case Mia's inability to move on from the sudden absence of her mum. The title, ostensibly the imperative given when holding the creepy embalmed hand, probably has more to do with Mia's reluctance to speak with those left alive, especially her father.

Talk to Me has a lot to recommend. Miranda Otto has a great role as Jade and Riley's mother, it opens with a cracking party scene that ends with a bang, and the climax is tense and not at all easy to predict. If surprisingly sharp, teenage horror is your bag, this won't disappoint.

Talk to Me opens July 27th at Luna, Palace and other assorted cinemas.

See also:

You might have noticed that I'm not the biggest horror film fan, with some notable exceptions, so it's a bit tricky to pick others films akin to this. Obvious ideas would be William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), due to the possession angle but I'm thinking the modern horror wave would be slightly more comparable. If only I'd seen The Insidiously Conjured Witch Nun Annabelle.

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