Talk to Me announces Danny and Michael Philippou as gifted new arrivals on the Australian indie scene. With a feature debut this strong, how long the twins remain indie and in Australia is anyone’s guess.
Apparently they turned down a directing gig on one of the DC Extended Universe movies to do this, so they clearly felt they had something special to offer. And it’s horror, too. With the horror market particularly crowded right now, this makes their determination to go it alone (if two people can be said to go it alone) all the more admirable.
So what’s it about? A séance that goes wrong, in short, leading to demonic possession and gruesome consequences. The Philippous make it fresh by crashlanding that familiar set-up into an episode of the long-running Aussie soap Neighbours, or a close approximation of it. Talk to Me’s vibe is of young suburban Australia – a gaggle of gross-out-loving, loud, over-sharing hedonists – dabbling with the dark side and unleashing all sorts of satanic nastiness as a consequence.
It starts at a party, where a pre-credits sequence gives us a taste of what the Philippous are good at – sudden extreme shifts of tone. There’s a death and a suicide before we’ve even met the main character, Mia (Sophie Wilde), a smart, good-looking girl who’s getting a hard time from people who should be her friends. She’s been depressed since the suicide of her mother and so they’re kind of shunning her – she’s no fun. On top of that Mia’s best friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), is now going out with Mia’s ex, Daniel (Otis Dhanji).
The Philippous tie the dead-mother and ex-boyfriend plots brilliantly into the main thrust of the movie by making the pair of them all the motivation Mia needs to do certain things that no one would normally do, first at a party where demonic spirits are conjured via a “talk to me” command to a skanky ceramic hand that’s meant to be some kind of portal. Later, as Mia returns to the hand for more contact with the dark side, something no sane human being would generally contemplate having seen what Mia’s seen.
It’s the Neighbours-meets-The Exorcist juxtaposition that keeps this movie moving, wild swings of wooah gruesomeness dropped just like that into manicured suburbia. There are scenes involving Jade’s younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird) that are probably as unpleasant a sight as you’re likely to see for a long time, even if you’re an all-you-can-eat champion of horror consumption.
In an accomplished tech team, the other behind-the-camera standout is Rebecca Burrato, who did the make-up design and deserves to be showered with all the accolades at all the awards ceremonies, but to date seems to have won only one, from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. I’m deliberately keeping plot details vague, otherwise why watch the movie, but Burrato’s work really is terrifying, stomach-churning stuff – flayed skin, bursting eyeballs sort of thing – and refreshingly original.
Though Mia eventually winds up dressed in a familiar “final girl” white T shirt, there is much that’s refreshingly original in this, not least the way that all the bad people (suburban bad, not bad bad) get away largely consequence-free when the nasty stuff starts happening, and the ghouls, once out in the free world, head for the most innocent person they can find.
Sophie Wilde plays the various moods of her character – standoffish, sparky, likeable, terrified, resolute – with real skill, as Mia shifts from passive to active and from victim to something a bit more culpable. That’s a nice touch by the Philippous too.
The Australians are good at horror, and the Philippous have made a film that can stand alongside the likes of The Tunnel, Wolf Creek, The Babadook and Relic, as something with that Aussie-horror balls-out determination that if something is meant to be frightening it’s damn well going to be frightening.
Talk to Me – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
