Talk to Me Brings Thrills and Chills to the Theater

October 2023

By Gisselle Montero, Staff Reporter

Horror movies are significant when it comes to celebrating Halloween. If you like to watch creepy movies, then you will love Talk to Me, a freaky, gory movie that involves teens facing regret after playing a seemingly friendly spiritual summoning game shown on social media. The concept is similar to the Ouija board, but in this movie, they have an embalmed hand that can connect to the spiritual world where the dead souls are; as the saying goes, “You can’t interrupt the dead nor disrespect it.”

The movie is not based on real life, and the game has never been in the media, but in the movie, all of the cast members play teens living through this horrific event. The three main characters in this movie are Mia, her friend Jade, and Jade’s younger brother Reily. The writers Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman allowed the young cast teen members to play this all out like average troubling teens. As this was starting to be fun, they decided to be stubborn with the dead souls. It all started to fall apart and turn into despair. To the point where they regret ever playing this game. Their souls hunted with the dead souls from the hand. 

The game plays out like this: If you select yourself or someone selects you as the victim, you must sit and get tied to the chair. If you are not tied up, the spirits will use your body to free themselves, and your soul will get trapped in the spiritual world where the dead are. Now, when everything is ready, hold the hand and say, “Talk to me.” The spirits will have 90 seconds to take over your body, making you shake, almost like having a seizure. In the next stage, the spirit makes itself at home in your body while your pupils turn all black. It means the spirit is in control. After seconds or minutes, the spirit leaves the body. You may be shocked or even like the feeling.

This happens in the movie, with the main character Mia waking up after the ritual and giggling. She filmed it, thinking it was so cool that they summoned a spirit. She was scared at first when she saw the spirit in her visions, but after that, she turned to feeling joy. 

 The acting of the cast members is exceptional. It shows us how younger teenagers would behave while summoning scary spirits. When making horror/gore movies, the directors want to create an image of fear by adding young teenagers who mimic the environment and how they would behave when facing horror. The first is the no-show of fear and fun. Second is how they progress, how everything goes downhill, and how they face regret and the fear they are trying to overcome.

Overall, the movie is an 8/10. It is not bad, but the ending is a bit messed up, worse than the ending scene of the movie Midsommar. However, if you love extreme horror/gore movies, this is for you, but it also shows some weird scenes that will have you questioning what you saw. Give this movie a chance and watch it with friends if you don’t want to experience it alone. Please do not try this crazy summoning at home, or if you do, let us know how it goes!