Still mourning the loss of her mother, Mia (Sophie Wilde) has grown emotionally distant from her father, Max (Marcus Johnson), and begun spending more time with her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and her younger brother Riley (Joe Bird). After attending a party with Jade and Daniel (Otis Dhanji), Mia's former boyfriend who's now dating Jade, the two are introduced to an embalmed hand relic by Hayley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss (Chris Alosio) that allows the holder to talk to the dead and allow them to be "allegedly" safely possessed by up to 90 seconds. What initially starts as a party gimmick soon turns serious when Mia thinks the hand is a bridge to her dead mother and sends her on a slow descent.

Talk to Me is the feature debut of twin Aussie Youtubers Danny and Michael Philippou who came to prominence with their channel RackaRacka which is known for horror comedy videos. The film is a fully Australian production which the brothers worked on with noted producer Samnatha Jennings who previously produced the breakout and influential horror film The Babadook. The movie has become a sleeper hit earning $88 million worldwide at the time of this writing against its $4.5 million budget as well as scoring substantial acclaim. Talk to Me is a promising debut from the Philippou's and shows them to be talent to keep an eye on.

While on a surface level the film would seem to be your average teen oriented horror film centered around a "cursed object" (Well-traveled ground seen in the likes of Polaroid, Wish Upon, and even this year's All Fun and Games) but despite sporting a familiar horror template, what it does with that template is anything but ordinary. At its core, Talk to Me is a character piece about addictive tendencies and unprocessed grief with Sophie Wilde's well-played as someone who's very much withdrawn from her family and extended social life and retreated to a state where she's in a state of limbo using her friend Jade and her family as a surrogate family while doing what she can to avoid the broken remains of her own. Despite Mia not being the most likable or sympathetic of characters, the movie doesn't ask us to like Mia and instead wants us to understand what motivates her and there is underlying humanity to her such as the "cool older sister" dynamic she has with Riley that shows a more tender side if not one to necessarily be approved of. I really like how the filmmakers handle the plot point of the embalmed hand because while they do establish a set of rules in how it works, they purposefully leave its origins vague which is really to its benefit as that makes its presence more unnerving. The Philippou do an interesting job of showcasing the hand's effects as we not only see them from the point of view of the user, but also from the point of view of outside observers. Despite being a horror film, there are also some points of comedy and satire that do work such as Jade's mother Sue always inquiring about whether drugs or parties are happening under her nose as well as the glib way the primarily teenaged characters are treating the notion of possession and contact with the afterlife as something to post on social media for bravado or bragging rights.

I really enjoyed Talk to Me and it's one of the better cursed object horror I've seen in quite some time. The Philippou Brothers do a solid job of bringing this premise to life and Sophie Wilde is fantastic as Mia and I really look forward to seeing what the Philippous do next.