There hasn’t been a great horror movie so far this year, but that will change this coming Friday when an A24-distributed indie is released.
Twin filmmaking duo Danny and Michael Philippou's “Talk to Me” completely subvert the clichés of the horror genre. Yes, there are some first-timer mistakes, very few of them, but these boys have vision to spare.
The twins are known as the YouTube duo RackaRacka, who are known to direct horror videos on the platform. I never heard of them until I watched this film.
The screening of “Talk to Me,” at this past January’s Sundance, felt like the time I discovered David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows” at Cannes. On-paper, it didn’t sound like anything fresh or original, a low-concept idea, but watching the film was a whole other story.
A24 nabbed the rights to the film at the fest, supposedly, paying a handsome seven-figure sum, and it’s probably going to be worth every penny for them.
The film stars Sophia Wilde as teenager Mia, who, on the anniversary of her mother’s death, gathers for a “calling” seance with her friends. They conjure up spirits using an ancient embalmed hand, and become temporarily possessed. The catch is that they must exorcise the spirit within 90 seconds, or it will stay forever inside them.
The problem is that they all become hooked by the experience, and this group of friends keeps performing more and more seances until one of them inevitably goes too far. Sounds hokey, right? It isn’t. What the Phillipous concentrate on most is the symmetry between visual and sound — it seems as though creating YouTube videos has been very beneficial in defining their big screen chops.
Mia is increasingly haunted by supernatural visions; they come aggressively quick, at the blink of an eye, but she also, unintentionally, sucks her close friend into this world as well. The blurring between reality and fiction is brilliantly portrayed here as we, the audience, are forced to choose who to trust; what’s real and what isn’t.
The thin line between reality and spiritual collapses before our very eyes, as Mia is haunted by supernatural visions, but are they all just in her head? It amounts to a very distinctive vibe — the atmospheric dread is one thing, but parts of this film feel damn-near surreal. This one’s bound to become a big indie hit. [B+]
If you've read this column for a while, you know the drill: I spitball Cannes every month from now until April, updating the latest intel and trying to figure out what will be in competition, vying for the Palme d'Or.