Kids are going to do silly stuff. But what does being terminally on-line do to IRL relationships when the whole web is in the palm of your hand? In that world, what does actual connection even appear like?
These had been a few of the many questions posed by Talk to Me, the new horror movie from directing duo Danny and Michael Philippou. This film isn’t actually about the web, which kinds an invisible presence in the background, reaching in to affect the characters’ lives. In that method, it’s not not like the deceased spirits the movie’s protagonists try to contact.
But I’m getting forward of myself.
Talk to Me facilities on Mia (Sophia Wild), a teen who turned shut with brother-sister pair Riley and Jade (Joe Bird and Alexandra Jensen) following the loss of life of her mom. At a home celebration, one in all the trio’s buddies produces a mysterious ceramic hand, etched with cryptic writing. Light a candle, maintain the hand, say the titular line, and the totem can convey anybody face-to-face with a random useless individual’s ghost. With one other voice command, the hand may even let the spirit into their physique for a short time.
While the premise feels like so many different motion pictures about teenagers dabbling in the darkish arts, every of the seances are shot like they’re in your stoner pal’s basement in school. One by one, the children are possessed whereas the others pull out their telephones and chuckle at how strung out they get. Then the children publish the movies on-line, regardless of their buddies’ protests.
With this framing, a lot of the horror in the movie comes not from anonymous hell spawn, however from the callousness with which friends bully one another—and the concern of dropping what discovered household you continue to have. In truth, for a lot of the movie, letting a useless individual possess the children’ our bodies is nearly portrayed as innocent enjoyable. Don’t keep possessed for too lengthy; don’t take too excessive a dose of the underworld—however so long as you’re protected, it needs to be nice.
Things solely begin to go off the rails when the spirits turn out to be extra acquainted. This ties in to the movie’s themes of connection, grief, and coping mechanisms. But what I discover most fascinating is how the characters are egged on by the stress of social media.
While that’s not the focus of the film, it’s arduous to keep away from, on condition that the administrators bought their begin on YouTube. The twins have been creating movies since earlier than they had been youngsters, and in a minimum of one occasion, one in all them was arrested for a stunt that concerned driving a automotive crammed with water.
It’s arduous not to really feel that additional weight when the telephones come out. Kids are being peer-pressured to take a success of supernatural powers that none of them can management. And once they get freaked out or terrified by what they expertise, properly, that’s #content material, child.
Talk to Me doesn’t dwell on the web itself—there’s no montage of likes and feedback and even any indication of whether or not anybody’s watching the movies in any respect. The film issues itself extra with how the stress to carry out can have an effect on the one who’s captured on digicam.
…. to be continued
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