Welcome to the Cutting Room

Talk to me about “Talk to Me” and we can geek out together. One of my top five films from the past five years, it grabs you from the beginning and doesn’t let go. It even shakes you a couple of times. Knowing “Talk to Me” was the Philippou brothers’ feature debut makes it even more impressive to me. This has to be the sixth or seventh time I’ve watched it, the first time being at the theater, alone. If you ever get the chance to do that, trust me and do it.

“Talk to Me” starts at a house party. Cole (Ari McCarthy) is searching for his younger brother, who he finds catatonic in a locked room. He’s banged up and looks like he’s been through hell, which at this point he probably has. Cole tries to take his brother home to take care of him, but his brother stabs him and then himself (in the HEAD) while those around him are filming instead of helping, naturally (get off my lawn).

Cut to Mia (Sophie Wilde, who gives an incredible performance) at the two year celebration of her late mother Rhea’s life. Mia has a strained relationship with her dad; neither one seems to know how to navigate life or each other without Rhea, after losing her to an accidental? intentional? overdose of sleeping pills. Fortunately(?) Mia is saved from an uncomfortable conversation with her dad by Riley, her best friend’s little brother (Joe Bird). The pair happen upon a dying kangaroo in the road, neither knowing what to do. Mia is unable to bring herself to put the animal out of its misery and assumes someone else will be along shortly to do what she couldn’t. Jade (Alexandra Jensen), Riley’s older sister and Mia’s best friend, is persuaded to sneak out (Riley tags along) and take Mia to a party thrown by Hayley and Joss (Zoe Terakes and Chris Alosio, respectively).

Hayley and Joss have taken possession of a ceramic hand with mystical powers, rumored to be the embalmed hand of a psychic medium or Satanist (depending on who you ask). Holding the hand and performing a ritual is said to allow the hand holder to communicate with spirits (and voluntarily become possessed for a short period of time – the trope of forgoing one’s autonomy in favor of a good time makes me so mad but that’s also why I don’t party like I used to [also I’m old, get OFF my lawn]) and all the cool kids are doing it, so why wouldn’t Mia? She seemingly has no other way to prove her mettle (not that she needs to, but being a teenager is a hell of a thing) and fit in, so obviously she’s going to make some poor choices.

Here’s where spoiler territory starts, so if you haven’t already watched “Talk to Me” and you plan to, come back when you’ve finished and listen to me gush, because we’re about to get into it. Mia, desperate to be accepted, volunteers to play the game first, coming face to face with the horrifyingly bloated corpse of a drowned woman. Seeking validation from her peers, Mia allows the spirit to possess her with frightening results; threatening Riley and telling him to run (can you smell what the Philippou brothers are foreshadowing?). As she returns to her body we hear about how wonderful the experience was for her, how it felt warm and cozy, and like she was safely out of control, or “in the passenger’s seat” as Mia puts it. I’m sensing some drug//addiction parallels here, aren’t you? We’re given more information on Rhea’s passing, learning that she scratched at her bedroom door to the point she was found with splinters under her fingernails, possibly trying to get help after her overdose.

Jade and Mia convince Hayley to bring the hand over to Jade’s to let Daniel (Otis Dhanji), Jade’s boyfriend, give it a whirl. “He,” or more accurately, the spirit possessing him, tells Jade that she makes him “soft,” licks his lips lasciviously at Mia, humps the floor, and makes out with Jade’s adorable stinky bulldog (this is the worst that happens to the dog, worry not!). The rest of the group takes turns with the hand, and fun is had by all. Despite Jade saying no, Riley ends up taking what’s supposed to be an abbreviated turn, with Mia’s blessing. As he takes the hand and summons a spirit, we see all color drain from Riley’s face, accompanied by a soft “what the fuck?!” As he lets the spirit in (again with Mia’s encouragement) the spirit begins to communicate as Mia’s dead mother. Rhea tells Mia how sorry she is to have left her, and how she would never do such a thing on purpose. However, as Mia tries to gain closure from who she believes to be Rhea (pushing them past the universally accepted time limit), Riley flips a switch and smashes his head on the table over and over until his face is almost unrecognizable; at one point he even tries to pull out his own eye. After multiple viewings this scene still makes my jaw drop; I know it’s become less taboo to hurt children in horror movies, but what happens to Riley is beyond what I’m used to seeing. Joe Bird gives an extremely convincing performance in his possession scenes. Riley is, naturally, rushed to the hospital, where we see Mia ostracized from her best friend’s family. Jade and Riley’s mother (Miranda Otto, Eowyn from Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, hell yeah) is convinced that Mia had a hand in drugging Riley (leading to him hurting himself so severely) and threatens to call the cops if Mia insists on sticking around.

Now that she’s alienated from her friends as well as her father, Mia starts seeing and hearing an apparition of her mother, although we never seem to get a good look at her face. Is this really Rhea? Is this someone or something fucking with Mia to take advantage of her in such a vulnerable state? Daniel warns Mia that maybe she wasn’t in contact with her mother after all, or that the spirits encountered while playing with the hand can manipulate the living because they’ve seen inside their minds. Mia becomes obsessed with the hand and contacting her mother, pushing her even further into isolation.

Despite becoming more secluded and weird, Mia teams back up with her peers to attempt to solve Riley’s problem (he’s since bitten his sister and injured himself again), trying all sorts of methods to bring him back, including communicating with the spirit of a little girl who brings Mia to the hell where Riley’s soul is being tormented.

Grief ends up as the bad guy in a lot of modern horror movies because it’s something everyone experiences at some point. No matter how blessed you are in life, you will lose someone you love. If you haven’t, count your blessings. Whether intentional or not, Rhea lost her life. Mia cannot come to terms with this and is heavily in denial that her mother would leave her on purpose. Unfortunately for everyone, depression and suicidal ideation don’t often come from a place of rationality for those outside the depressed/suicidal person’s head and shit does happen. Mia tells her dad that Rhea told Mia she didn’t kill herself on purpose after her dad reads Mia the suicide note he found with Rhea’s body.

The next time we see Mia interact with “Rhea” she appears even more distorted, desperately clinging to Mia and telling her that her father isn’t really her father and that the only way to fix Riley is to let him die (or kill him). Mia continues to make terrible choices in her grief-riddled haze, leading to her abducting the ailing Riley from his hospital bed and bringing him to the side of a busy highway. However, as we saw during the first act of the movie, Mia is unable to bring herself to kill, despite “Rhea” egging her on. Instead, Mia throws herself into the road, saving Riley’s life.

When she comes to, Mia finds herself walking the halls of the hospital but finds she doesn’t have a reflection anymore, referencing a recurring nightmare of hers. Mia tries to chase down her dad as he walks to an elevator, but she’s invisible to those around her. She sees how battered and bruised she’s become and realizes what happened; Mia died when she leapt into traffic. She walks towards a bright light which brings Mia face to face with a freaked out man at a party holding the hand that started it all; bringing us full circle. I absolutely adore the ending and would love to see more backstory of the hand and where it came from (like is there another one or did this psychic get to run off with one hand still attached? I know there were rumors of a sequel but no idea where that’s at). “Talk to Me” was perfect for me. 5/5, no notes.

“Bring her back” is the next venture from the Phillipou brothers and I can’t wait to see it (I will be going in blind, as I’ve found recent trailers have a lot of spoilers in them); the film releases 5/30/25 in the US.

As always, I recommend checking https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ for any triggers or things you don’t want to see before starting *any* horror movie.

All views expressed are my own, you don’t have to agree with them! I’m open to respectful discourse.

Feel free to leave any movie recommendations or anything you’d like to read a review of!