Hooptober 10.0 – Talk to Me (2023)

Being Film #21 for Hooptober 2023

A couple quick ones while I’m away for an extended weekend. I’m not sure anyone was expecting the feature debut from Danny and Michael Philippou, also known as YouTube’s RackRacka, to be bad – the team over the years have been great at executing high concept shorts with miniscule budgets, but the assuredness, confidence, and execution of Talk to Me is remarkable. Here is a film that is sensitive and speaks to the very real and present concerns of today’s youth, but has the presence of veteran filmmakers. And oh yeah: is also simply terrifying.

THE QUICK SUMMARY: The things kids will do today, ya know? Like finding the embalmed hand of a deceased medium and filming Tik Toks of each other as they grasp the hand and for 90 seconds become possessed by the dead. Is it a hoax? Mia intends to find out, not only because she feels alone and apart from her peers, but maybe it’ll bring some closure to a recent tragedy. Surprise: it’s not a hoax, and as kids are want to do, their forget rules in favor of their own passions and things get downright nasty. Before the film’s end Mia will find just what it means to find connection with the dead…

Talk To Me is still so new I don’t want to go into details – this is a film best experienced cold. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about what a stellar cast the Philippous have put together starting with Sophie Wilde as Mia. Her face is its own special effect, her huge beautiful eyes reflecting all the terror and pain she confronts throughout the film. Her equal is in Joe Bird as Reily, the younger brother of her best Jade. His role is small but critical to the events of the film, and the chemistry he has with Wilde is fantastic. He’s forced to do some pretty brutal things, some of which aren’t horror-related and he is brilliant in every sequence. Finally there’s Zoe Terakes as Haley, the ringleader of the hand in question and the default “cool kid” that everyone circulates around. This was my first exposure to Terakes, and their presence is electric. Hearing that they’re going to show up a lot more (including the MCU) is exciting, but check them out here first.

But the real stars are the Philippou brothers. It’s not so much that they reject what we think the cliche of a YouTube video is in favor of very assured, slick directing, but that they cleverly bring the immediacy and vibrancy of their shorts into the feature’s overall tone. Check out the incredible opening (the first 3 minutes of this film are wonderful) or the way they use the camera to show how the possessions take hold, and how they expertly show by not showing everything that’s happening.

Hearing that there’s already material shot that expands the opening as well as sequences drafted for the just-announced sequel, I can’t wait to see what they bring to the table next. Talk To Me is that good.