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Writer's pictureMr. Pat

Talk to Me

I love baseball, but I don't think I could be any more underwhelmed about the matchup. Los Angeles Dodgers vs the New York Yankees. I don't care enough for either team to even get worked up over either. It's the two teams with the highest payroll just outspending everyone to make it to the World Series. Boo them both. Then again, it's easy to ignore baseball season when your favorite team is statistically the worst baseball team ever. Go sports! Anyways, let's talk about...


Talk to Me (2022)

The movie starts strong with some pretty graphic moments. A young adult storms into a party to extract his brother. He tracks him down to a backroom and smashes the door in to get to him. It's a small moment, but I loved it. In movies, any time someone breaks down a door they kick it and the door goes flying in. In Talk to Me, he's ramming into it several times right in front of the shocked kid that lives there. It also doesn't fly open. He creates a big ass hole in the middle of it. I don't know why, but I appreciated that moment. Anyway, as they're leaving, the older brother demands all the gawkers stop recording him only to get stabbed by his brother who then walks outside and with one quick stab, sticks the business end of the blade into his head. Yikes!


We fast forward a bit and meet a group of friends playing a game where they can contact the dead. Here's how it works, they bring in a severed, embalmed hand of someone who was either a psychic or Satanist, the group isn't sure which, that's been covered in ceramic. They then grip the hand and say "Talk to me." At this point they see a ghost staring at them. Once they get the nerve, they say, "I let you in" and then the ghost possesses them. You then have 90 seconds before your friends have to break contact with the hand and blow out a candle or else the ghosty will be able to stay. On the first go around with a girl named Mia, the crew has a hard breaking the connection, and it goes slightly beyond the 90 seconds. She says she's fine, but the ghost that latched on begs to differ.


After another night of partying with ghosts, the younger brother of the girl she's living with convinces Mia to let him take a turn if he only does it for 50 seconds. But, when the time is nearing the end, the ghost claims to be Mia's mother who had died by suicide. Mia begs them to keep going because she's desperate to talk to her mom. As the clock ticks closer to 90, Mia keeps on talking and then the kid, Riley, starts violently slamming his head against a desk and then tries to rip out his eye before they're able to break the connection. It's all downhill from there as Riley is sent to the hospital and continues violently attacking himself at every opportunity. Not only that, Mia took the hand so she could talk to her mom. Mia is understandably so blinded by the fact that she thinks she's getting closure with her mother, that it goes right over her head that her "mother" is manipulating her.


I liked it. I do not doubt that if people came across an object that allowed them to become possessed safely, it would turn into a party game for teenagers. In a movie about ghosts, or demons, the jury's out on what exactly they are, everything is believable. I liked how anytime something was going on, you could see like 10 different phones from teenagers recording the action. Even when Mia demands they do it without phones, during the montage showing them all playing, everyone has their devices out, Mia included, recording the session. Which furthers how real these characters felt. Even when they're being stupid, you can chalk it up to them being teenagers, being lost in grief or the young kid desperately wanting to hang with the cooler, older crowd.


It's not the scariest movie in the world, I'd say it goes more for creepy and disturbing than outright scary. It's also original. While it's not haunted pool original, I liked the new take on a Ouija Board-type device. Much like the board, there is a danger to what they're doing, but if they just follow the rules, they'll be fine. It's when you go off script that you find yourself in hot water. It's well-acted and Australian, so you get a lot of fun accents to listen to. Plus, the mother is a fun character as well. The entire movie I was looking at her knowing I recognized her, but had no idea from what. I thought I must have been mistaken because my knowledge of Australian cinema is rather limited. I went to IMDB and saw Miranda Otto played her and still, I had no idea. Then I scrolled down a bit and saw she's Eowyn from Lord of the Rings! I enjoyed as a single mom doing her best to raise two of her own kids and her daughter's friend Mia.


It's intriguing and keeps you guessing about what's coming next. It has a slow build to the climax where you're constantly just how far gone this character is and if she's going to go through with what the ghosties want her to do. It's cool because you have no idea what the motivations are for any of these ghosts. They're just as varied, and sometimes disturbing, as the rest of the teenagers.


7 Dr. Chainsaws!


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