‘Talk to Me’ Invites You to Talk to the Hand and Take a Death Trip

July 27, 2023

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Start talking (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji, Miranda Otto, Zoe Terakes, Chris Alosio, Marcus Johnson, Alexandria Steffensen

Directors: Danny and Michael Philippou

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Bloody Possessions and Horny Dialogue

Release Date: July 28, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Let’s give ’em a hand! On second thought, maybe not. Especially if the hand in question is the one from Talk to Me, the feature directing debut from Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou. At first glance, it looks like a harmless, though creepy, piece of porcelain, with a bunch of handwritten messages all screwed across. But when you go in for a handshake and say “talk to me,” suddenly a pus-spewing spirit appears. Then when you add “I’ll let you in,” you’re suddenly possessed. It’s treated like a viral social media challenge, but of course it turns about as deadly as you might expect. Specifically, 17-year-old Mia (Sophie Wilde) takes it too far when she thinks she’s made contact with her mother Rhea (Alexandria Steffensen), who recently committed suicide. Her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) urges at least some semblance of caution, but the opposite is in store when her younger brother Riley (Joe Bird) ends up with a bloody body and a trapped soul.

What Made an Impression?: A New Vision: Horror audiences are perhaps the most seen-it-all breed of moviegoer in the multiplex. So it’s special when you stumble across something that really doesn’t feel like anything else you’ve ever encountered before. Talk to Me‘s individual components are familiar, from the young people foolishly meddling with the supernatural, to the trauma-filled backstory, to the visions that can’t be trusted. But it’s all combined into a package with a new, spruced-up veneer. Maybe it’s all those thick Aussie accents giving me fresh vibes. Or it’s probably that hand – it’s quite a hook!
Young, Dumb, and Very Dumb: Horror movie characters aren’t exactly known for their sensible decision-making, especially if they’re teenagers. But the kids in Talk to Me take it to another level. Every possible warning was there to convince them not to mess with the hand in the first place. A prologue presents an earlier chapter in which a previous handshaker ended up stabbing his own brother and killing himself. The current batch of kids are fully aware of this backstory. It’s not some urban legend, but a well-known cautionary tale. But there’s a certain rush to flirting with death, and they’re all onboard for the extreme risks. It doesn’t make it any less maddening to watch them put themselves in harm’s way, though.
Fully Uncompromising: Talk to Me is not for the faint of heart. It fully earns its R rating with faces stuffed into bloody pulps and unrelenting treatment from demented spirits. It’s of course no surprise for this genre to be as deadly as possible, but it’s still an accomplishment when the demises are as devastating as they are here. Mia and her crew are immature and in over their heads, but their sudden twists of fate are much crueler than they deserve. The Philippou brothers aren’t here to let you get comfortable, though. So make peace with your maker, because if you’re looking for relief, you’ll need to find it elsewhere.

Talk to Me is Recommended If You Like: Sinister, Final Destination, It Follows

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Hands

‘Downhill’ Demonstrates the Limits of Constrained Remakes

February 12, 2020

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CREDIT: Jaap Buitendijk/Twentieth Century Fox

Starring: Will Ferrell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Miranda Otto, Zach Woods, Zoë Chao, Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford

Directors: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

Running Time: 86 Minutes

Rating: R for Bold Language That Pops Out on Vacation

Release Date: February 14, 2020

Sometimes a remake that otherwise seems pretty pointless can be useful for helping to clarify something that you may have missed in the original. That happened to me with the explosive conclusion of the Korean classic neo-noir Oldboy and Spike Lee’s 2013 remake, and now I have experienced it once again with Downhill, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s take on the 2014 Swedish cringe family comedy Force Majeure. There’s a climactic moment on a ski slope in Force Majeure that felt to me at the time meditative and ambiguous, but when I saw Downhill‘s take, the purpose of that incident was spelled out much more clearly. (Although reconciling these two as congruent requires a specific interpretation of Force Majeure.) There’s an argument to be made in favor of leaving the meaning as subtext, but I know I felt satisfied in the moment. As for the rest of this American version, let’s just say this material is very tricky to make entertaining, no matter what part of the world you’re in and no matter how many times it’s been told.

Force Majeure‘s inciting incident is an all-time doozy, and Downhill does it pretty much exactly the same. The Staunton family is on vacation at a ski resort in the Alps when a supposedly controlled avalanche looks like it is about to turn deadly. In a moment of panic, Dad Pete (Will Ferrell) runs away from his wife Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and his two sons. Ultimately nobody is hurt, but the tension remains simmering for the entire vacation. This all plays out in set pieces that are quite often lifted directly from the original. Pete’s psyche breaks down as he cannot bring himself to admit his betrayal, while Billie insists on the version of the truth that she can so clearly see is the correct version, and friends and acquaintances look on horrified, profoundly flummoxed by the impossible task of lightening the mood.

It’s not necessarily a more Americanized version of the same thing, at least no more so than a version starring American actors must necessarily be. Instead, it’s a more mature version, as Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus are more than a decade older than their counterparts, Johannes Bah Kuhnke and Lisa Loven Kongsli, were when Force Majeure came out. The original dealt with new-ish parents struggling with their evolving self-identities, while Downhill is about a middle-aged couple despairing, “It can’t be this disastrous after we’ve come so far, can it?!” That’s a theme it would have been wise to lean into more instead of relying so much on the template it had ready to go. But as it stands, it is still a fascinating dive into the panic that arises when we realize that we may never fully know who we and our loved ones really are.

Downhill is Recommended If You Like: Hard Questions

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Avalanches

This Is a Movie Review: Annabelle: Creation

August 19, 2017

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Annabelle: Creation really takes a while to ramp up the intensity. Like, at least an hour, maybe even an hour-fifteen, into its running time, at which point it finally starts ripping limbs and tearing faces apart enough to (barely) justify its R rating. That is kind of crazy given the relentless standard set by the previous Conjuring/Annabelle films. In the prelude, there are a lot of lingering close-ups and light/dark interplay in which you have plenty of time to uncover the agents of evil lurking in the fuzzy shadows. Ultimately, Creation is most valuable for how it expands the mythology, favoring a harmonically mind-bending approach that calls to mind the latter-day Paranormal Activity sequels.

I give Annabelle: Creation 5 Broken Fingers Around a Cross in Every Frame.