One of the few good aspects of being a Regal member involves the Mystery Movie Mondays. These events happen about once a month, and Regal puts on an early showing of a movie that will be released in about two weeks. So the viewers get early access to a new movie. This is pretty cool, but honestly the movies are typically bad, because why would Regal be releasing a new movie that is going to be awesome and a big box office draw for less money? A couple of times, the movies have been good, and this leads to an excellent word of mouth campaign, so if a movie has a low budget for advertising, this can be a great way to get some easy free publicity, and that was the case for Talk to Me, a new Australian horror that will have a terrifying staying power in the viewer’s consciousness.
Talk to Me focuses on a group of Australian teens who have a new horrific addiction that has been plaguing their social media feeds. There is a hand that allows the person who is holding it to talk to a dead person, by saying, “Talk to me,” and if they choose, they can allow the dead person to possess them by saying, “I let you in,” and this lasts for as long as the person is holding the hand, but the suggested amount of time by the hand’s owners is 90 seconds, because after that the possessor might get in too deep. Mia and Jade two long standing best friends are skeptical of these videos, and they want to go and see for themselves. Mia is more of an outcast, and her mom passed away recently, so she has a strong attachment to Jade, that people question, so when the possessions start, Mia offers to take a turn, and she finds out quickly that it is real, and this draws her in for more.
Even after seeing Mia get temporarily possessed, Jade was not convinced, and one night when her mom is working late, she invites the hand owners over, as well as Mia and Daniel, Jade’s boyfriend, plus Jade’s brother, Riley, is home, and his friend is there as well. So they have a small party, which includes the possessions. Just about everyone is taking a turn, except for Riley and his friend, because they are too young, but everyone is having a blast. The party is winding down, and Riley says he wants a turn, but Jade tells him, but Mia tries to come to his aid, and this leads to Riley saying something mean, and Jade storming out of the room, and despite better judgement, Riley gets strapped into the chair, and he gets possessed, but this time it is different, this time, he is possessed by Mia’s mom, and she does not want the connection to go, so she keeps telling them to wait to break the connection, and then it ramps up quick. Riley starts banging his head on the table, and blood is pouring out, and they are trying to break the hand free, but it is locked in a tight grasp, and when they finally do break the hand free, they forget to blow out the candle, and Riley starts banging his head on the mantle almost killing himself, before he passes out and is rushed to the hospital. Now the entity is out, and Mia and Riley are both battling for their lives and sanity.
This small possession party is filmed incredibly well, and they honestly make something unhinged look like so much fun. It is like a classic high school party scene, they are making the room spin as each person takes a turn, and there is smoke blowing as they blow out the candle thus mixing in two aspects of a normal high school party movie, the spinning of drinking, and the smoke from smoking. It even adds in the element of peer pressure. Despite Jade being very skeptical, she is very reluctant to give it a go, but finally she is convinced to do so. This occurred after her boyfriend Daniel gave it a go, but as health class taught us in middle and high school, peer pressure is not a good thing. Everything seems fine at first, until it gets totally out of control.
The one thing that will stick with me from this movie is the sounds. Whenever something violent happened, it was the most vivid and loud sound that I have ever heard. So when Riley gets possessed, and they could not break him free, and he starts to bang his head repeatedly on the table with a vigorous force, the sound just makes you cringe. The visual is awful, but the squelching sound of not only the head banging, but the blood splashing and splattering is unlike anything I have ever heard. This is not the only time there is head banging and squelching either.
There is also a scene when Riley is in the bathroom in the hospital, and Jade is giving him a sponge bath, and he falls out of his wheelchair intentionally, and he starts to bang his head on the tile wall, and again there is the graphic sound of the blood from the hit, but there is also the shattering and cracking of the tiles. It is so tough to watch, but if you are a person who closes their eyes when something is scary, this would give you no reprieve, because then you would still be hearing it, and this is almost worst. There are other intense sounds as well like knocking or banging at the doors. I do not know why, but movies this year have really perfected the scariest knocks. Like there is so much force and terror behind them. Also there are screams and entities yelling that just send chills down your spine.
A big question that the movie asks is whether this was actually Mia’s mom that possessed Riley, or if it was something more sinister that was able to replicate being her mom. Hopefully it was the latter, and Mia’s mom was not a demon woman, but we never really find out. Either way Mia is totally convinced this was her mom, and although as a viewer, it is easy to remove yourself from the situation and be like, why would you listen to this ghost telling you to do terrible things and still believe it is your mom, but she does know many personal details about Mia, and Mia has been struggling with this loss. So imagine losing a loved one that you have held so dear, and then you have the chance to talk to them again, or at least you think you have the chance to talk to them again, it would be so hard to turn that opportunity down, and if they sounded and looked like the real deal, it would make it all the harder.
If you know anything about Australia, you know that it is a scary place. They have a plethora of the world’s most dangerous spiders, and on top of that, they also have an abundance of venomous snakes too. So to add this on top of that, just makes Australia a frightening place to go, it may be beautiful, but it is also deadly, and that makes me not want to go. They also use a kangaroo in this movie twice. First it is shown dying in the road, and Mia is faced with the choice of running it over and putting it out of its misery, or continuing on and letting it suffer, and she chooses to let it suffer, despite Riley telling her to do otherwise, and this same choice is given again at the end of the movie to Mia, but in a different way. The movie also has a great twist of an ending that made the audience audibly make some noise.
The movie is well worth seeing, especially if you enjoy scary movies, there are many scares in it, and it made me feel uncomfortable at multiple points watching it, which in the moment was not as fun, but looking back on it is great. It has been three days since I have seen it, and I am still a little scared once night comes, and I turn everything off. Last night I was going to the bathroom, and sometimes my toilet creaks, and it makes that porcelain-on-porcelain sound, and it scared me so bad, because I was thinking about the movie. Also once it gets dark, I start to feel unsettled just thinking about the words “talk to me.” I have not felt this way about a scary movie in a long time, so I kind of love it. I gave this 3.5 stars, and I recommend seeing it in a packed theater.
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