Danny and Michael Philippou

Cruising down a darkened roadway while belting out the lyrics to a Sia song, the teenaged Mia (Sophie Wilde) suddenly slams on the brakes to avoid running over a wounded kangaroo, which is lying helpless in the middle of the street. Her young companion, an eager 13-year-old boy named Riley (Joe Bird), urges her to put the poor animal out of its misery. Mia initially resolves to oblige, but—whether due to a surfeit of compassion or a lack of determination—she ultimately chooses to leave the pitiful creature be. This scene, which is never explicitly referenced again, has absolutely no figurative bearing on anything that comes after.

I’m kidding, of course. But one of the intriguing things about Talk to Me, the creepy and jagged new horror picture from Danny and Michael Philippou, is how it operates as a metaphorical Rorschach test. Is it a critique of the restlessness of the TikTok generation? A commentary on the fraying bonds of the modern nuclear family? A sobering portrait of the perils of drug addiction? Or is it just a really scary movie in which a few hapless kids make the mistake of messing with some very angry demons? Read More