Talk to Me (2022)

Normally, I'd save a horror for next month, but Netflix, in its unfathomable wisdom, will stop streaming this one by then. I approached with trepidation, partly because I have trouble liking A24 and partly because Australia can scare me good.

In modern Adelaide, there exists a disembodied hand covered in papier-mâché and written all over (we never get a good look at the messages). If you grasp it near a lit candle and say, "Talk to me," you alone will see a usually random ghost standing before you in an instant, looking as a body might shortly after death (less tastefully than in The Sixth Sense). If you then say, "I let you in," you get possessed until someone pries the hand from you and extinguishes the flame -- as long as they're fast enough. Some ghosts are tenacious. And malevolent, for reasons unknown.

Leave it to a bunch of unsupervised high schoolers to make a party game out of possession. The individual is tied to a chair, a timer is set to avoid surpassing 90 seconds, and videos are taken and uploaded. Even when the ghosts are gross, embarrassing, cruel, and/or frightful, both witnesses and participants get a kick out of it. I admit there's a certain appeal in not being directly accountable for your body's actions for a while. Only when somebody turns self-destructive do the teens realize it's gone too far.

Like in Get Out, the first scene does not focus on major characters; it serves mainly to give us a foretaste of the intensity that will come after a gradual buildup. The protagonist is Mia (Sophia Wilde), who initially likes possessions as much as anyone. Having a dead mother makes her especially vulnerable to spiritual seduction and manipulation. Friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) refuses to play with fire, while her 14-year-old brother, Riley (Joe Bird), is too intrigued for her comfort. When Riley suffers terribly, Mia gets much of the blame. Then she starts seeing ghosts without the help of the hand. To living bystanders, her reactions look dangerously insane.

I'm not entirely sure the ghosts aren't demons. They're ruthless to innocent, seemingly arbitrary targets. They certainly practice deception many times, to the point that exact events are open to interpretation. It wouldn't be the first A24 movie in which demons reign over humans. Strictly speaking, the picture's on-screen body count remains low, but I'm more concerned about what becomes of souls.

TtM may be more upsetting than scary. Regardless, I admire the skill that went into it, with practical effects and just five weeks' shooting. If a sequel or prequel ever gets released, I'll consider it.