Somehow, 95% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 219 reviews)
Runtime: 95 incredibly long minutes
Directed by: Two Australian brothers I haven't heard of before
Starring: A bunch of unknowns and Miranda Otto
From: It was released wide by A24, because of course!
You know, these elevated horror movies just aren’t for me. I probably shouldn’t phrase it that way as I realize not all of those films belong in a category with a goofy name I don’t fully understand anyhow. It’s only used so everyone knows what I’m referring to. It honestly requires a list where I list each picture and my opinions where usually I thought they were massively overrated. Get Out is great, The Witch is very good and I guess Hereditary was fine. Otherwise… I don’t wish to feel this way as usually those were viewed at the cineplex and what time/money were spent on flicks where I didn’t understand the hype. I’m still baffled as to why most film fans love the Suspiria and Evil Dead remakes—those were awful!
Point is, I don’t go into these looking to hate them and it is never my intention to offer a differing viewpoint for attention; it’s always my honest opinion. As for Talk to Me, I first heard some buzz for it last month and it was really only the week it released that there was any sort of push. It took until after the movie for me to finally see the trailer-more on that later. For the most part I went into the movie completely blind except for knowing that it was an Australian production co-starring Miranda Otto and it was about an embalmed hand.
For modern movies of all genres, what kills it for me is the story and characters; if they massively turn me off… unfortunately, that was the case here. Even before I realize that the entire premise which introduced the main blokes to the embalmed hand was absolutely ludicrous… there’s an opening scene that was non-sequitor until the beginning of the third act (where a character returns… and that meant jack squat for the story!)-the sound mix was best described as “approved by Christopher Nolan”, so not all the dialogue was understood by me and thus the first few minutes I was befuddled.
Once it became clear and I realized we had to follow a bunch of annoying teens (who love being dicks to each other AND have bad relationships w/ their parents! Also, for some reason, one has a CRAZY FROG ringtone as if culture did not advance past 2008 in the Land Down Under) who are introduced to the hand in an incredibly preposterous way (especially given its powers)… the movie lost me at that point. That was SO dumb, it could never recover. Yeah, there are some gruesome moments but otherwise it’s themes that seem hackneyed and overdone by this point w/ A24 movies—and when the lead character is just as much a bloomin’ idiot as the ones you see in too many slasher films…
As for that trailer only viewed after the film—I wish it would have been seen by me beforehand. It showed its cards in presenting my chief complaints against Talk to Me, and having realized that my likely reaction would have been, “Eh, how about I pass?” I am crestfallen that this film from a pair of brothers I’ve never heard of and a YouTube channel I’ve never heard of totally missed for me, but alas… I don’t fault the cast of mostly unknowns as it looked like they tried their best; to reiterate, the story and characters totally turned me off. Plenty of horror from the past and the modern examples that don’t feel so pretentious are more my vibe anyhow.
The apropos way of concluding this review: the key plot point revolves around a topic which SHOULD affect me; yet even that didn’t garner much emotion. Ultimately, I’m glad most seem to love this; if only I could concur…
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