Talk to Me (2022)

Rated R because A24 movies are almost just a little too much to comfortably sit through. Most of the R rating comes from the creepiness of the dead people sprinkled throughout the film.  But there are motifs of suicide that make the death just a bit too real to really be considered fun.  There's a lot of swearing and the constant reminder that teens make bad decisions, such as sex, booze, and drugs.  It's a pretty hard R and you won't hear me trying to downplay this one.

DIRECTORS: Danny Phillipou and Michael Phillipou

Some horror movies are just a little bit mean.  A24 movies tend to be mean, so I shouldn't be shocked.  Before I lose my absolute most on-the-nose takeaway, here it is: "It's a better Flatliners."  There, that's the takeaway.  I mean, it sounds completely dismissive of both films, but that's what this movie is fundamentally, even down to the timer breaking down the time on the other side.  But as I'm saying, this is also a crueler Flatliners, which is almost a cruel movie in itself.

I mean, I really liked it. Everyone said that this one is rad and I'm just trying to watch rad movies right now.  (Sorry, The Blackening.  You are going to be surrounded by far better movies in the next month.)  Part of what makes Talk to Me almost something special (I'm still trying to wrap my head around this movie.  I finished it minutes ago and am trying to knock out a blog before it gets too late at night. Regardless, I'm supposed to be asleep right now.) is the fact that it remembers that it is being more of a movie beyond its scares.  I like that.  I like that a lot.  This is a story about grief and being a teenager.  The Phillipous have created something that is almost intentionally a little difficult to digest and I think that's what makes this movie something beyond the typical horror movie.

Talk to Me is not alone in one element of the movie.  In some of the darker horror movies I've seen, especially ones involving demons and things that only the protagonist can see, there is a precedent to have the protagonist become the villain of the piece by the end.  The thing that Talk to Me does a little bit different, which ultimately seems minor but resonates really well, is that they make Mia both likable and fundamentally flawed.  There are a lot of movies, especially in the indie circuit like Booksmart and mid90s, that remind us that teens are idiots and baseline cruel.