Movies
The Ending of ‘Talk To Me’ Explained
A24’s Talk To Me chronicles the story of 17-year-old Mia, played by Sophie Wilde, whose desperation for genuine connection makes her a dangerous candidate for possession. The possession is voluntary and happens to anyone who grabs the movie’s signature embalmed Hand before a lit candle and recites two incantations. The first is “Talk to me,” which summons a spirit for the person holding the Hand to see. Lastly, “I let you in” grants the spirit permission to enter the person’s body for 90 seconds. Any longer, and the spirit may become too attached: a lesson Mia unfortunately learns in the worst way possible. Spoiler’s ahead.
According to the kids in the movie, the mysterious hand once belonged to a medium, who had their hand severed and then embalmed. It’s now used to conjure spirits.
The Talk To Me Game Explained
The film opens with a party going off the rails when a disturbed young man stabs his brother and himself (in the face) in front of everyone. Before learning their place in the story, we meet Mia and the people in her life, including her best friend’s younger brother Riley (Joe Bird), a good kid. While Mia’s driving Riley down a country road late at night, the two encounter a severely injured kangaroo on the road. Mia’s left with the decision to either put the kangaroo out of its misery or leave it to suffer. She cannot kill it, so she chooses option two.
Mia’s best friend and Riley’s older sister, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), go to a party. Mia’s been struggling to cope with losing her mother, Rhea (Alexandria Steffensen), so she jumps at the first chance for a cheap thrill at the party: the Hand. Whatever spirit possessed Mia wantingly fixated on Riley, likely because it could control younger vessels more easily.
Letting go of the Hand and blowing out the candle ends the possession, but everyone around Mia fails to do that within the 90-second window. Despite this, she loved the experience and didn’t seem possessed after they removed the spirit from her. At this point, the film’s message of codependency and maladaptive coping mechanisms for grief becomes clear. The possession via supernatural spirits is not unlike the experience of drinking liquor (also referred to as spirits) or taking other substances. The camera angle when the teenagers are lighting the candle is reminiscent of “lighting up” certain other substances, as another example.
Riley’s Overdose
Everyone continues playing with the Hand night after night, and Mia loses herself in the good times until the night of Riley’s first possession. Riley’s not taking well to being possessed, but Mia prolongs it because she believes the spirit is Rhea’s. Mia’s grief has been so unbearable that she’s risking her friend’s well-being just for a chance to talk to her mother again.
Whatever Riley lets in nearly kills him by throwing his body around the room. The scene seems to be a gruesome reminder of the bodily, mental, and spiritual harm overdosing poses to anyone using mind-altering substances and those around them.
Riley’s family casts Mia out because they blame her for what happened to him, inadvertently contributing to her downward spiral. Even worse, she’s stolen the Hand and continues using it mostly privately. She believes the ghost she’s connecting to is her mother, despite clues seemingly pointing to the contrary.
Desperate for connection, Mia uses the Hand alone for a chance to see her deceased mother one more time.
Why Did the Struck Kangaroo Return?
What appears to be Rhea’s ghost convinces Mia that Riley’s soul is being tortured in limbo and instructs her to free the boy by killing him. The spirit tricks Mia into stabbing her father in the neck with scissors before she heads to the hospital.
While Mia’s working up the courage at Riley’s bedside to do the evil deed, she sees the kangaroo they saw on the road earlier in the film. The vision reads like an eerie goading from beyond their physical world to put the boy out of his misery.
Mia puts Riley in a wheelchair and kidnaps him from the hospital, taking him to the side of a busy highway. She intends to push him into oncoming traffic until she realizes Rhea’s ghost is a spirit posing as her mother. It possesses Mia, and she ends up severely injured on the road like the kangaroo. However, Mia’s death isn’t the end of her misery.
Mia’s Nightmare Becomes Reality in Talk To Me
Mia’s a ghost but doesn’t realize it, so she tries without success in the hospital to talk to those around her. How did she end up here? I imagine Mia was still alive after getting struck on the highway, and she died while the medical support team fought to save her.
Mia can’t see her reflection in a mirror, which is her recurring nightmare made real. Next, Mia finds herself in complete darkness until a faint light appears. A new group of kids is playing with the Hand and Mia’s become part of the game.
Some questions remain, but a Talk To Me sequel is in the works, so we’ll likely understand more about the creepy Hand and its obscure origins soon.
You can watch Talk To Me on VOD or purchase the Blu-ray starting October 3rd, 2023.
We are finally in the midst of Shudder’s 61 days of Halloween! There are so many horror movies to consume and 31 days simply isn’t enough. Use the long Labor Day weekend to kick off your horror movie countdown and add these movies to your Shudder queue. Here is a list of what I would recommend checking out to ease into the Halloween spirit right before going into full blown premature trick-or-treating mode.
The Best Movies to Stream on Shudder This Month
The Yeti (2026)
A large creature has captured people in a remote Alaskan town in the 1940s. The sheriff has put together a search-and-rescue monster hunting party to bring back the captives. It sounds like the premise of a Cold Iron Studios co-op video game in the same vein as Aliens: Fireteam Elite. The stylization from co-directors Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta in the trailer makes me think they have cooked up a story that blends action, horror, and wilderness survival. Sign me up, sheriff!
Leave (2022)
Hunter was found as a baby abandoned in a cemetery wrapped in a cloth covered with satanic symbols. She has been searching for answers her whole life about where she came from. Her journey to find her parents takes her down a mysterious path, and she is being warned by something from the beyond to leave this mystery alone. Can she trust who this investigation is leading her towards? It’s a mysterious, supernatural, culty film that will give you chills.
Penny Lane is Dead (2026)
One crazy night in Australia with perhaps a dash of revenge. Shudder’s latest original looks to be packed with blood and violence in this story of girls just trying to have fun until the crazy cousin drugs the party and invites dangerous people to play. The trailer promises lots of body horror (trigger warning, there may be SA or threat of it). I’m not saying it will be Evil Dead level, but there’s definitely something in the Aussie water with Lee Cronin pumping out his gory deadites and mummy films, and now Mia Kate Russel with this one.
The Others (2001)
This is a PSA to the younger readers of Horror Press; stop what you’re doing and watch Nicole Kidman go 100 miles per hour in this classic ghost story with a twist. Dreary weather, massive estate, confusing corridors, creepy house servants you don’t know if you can trust, and sad British kids. The ending is an all-timer and spoilers should be avoided at all costs. It has exactly what you need to get right into the cozy, spooky mood for 61-days of Halloween.
Dark Harvest (2023)
If The Hunger Games and The Purge had a baby and raised it during Oktoberfest. Teenage boys are tasked with hunting and killing the entity known as Sawtooth Jack on Halloween night, or it could mean certain peril for their town. Of the movies I have listed here that I have not seen, this is going to be at the top of my watchlist. Teens fighting for survival on Halloween night and the battle setting is in a cornfield?! Say less. I am there with my Sam Adams seasonal in hand. Another perfect movie to cannonball me right into the Halloween spirit.
This list has been carefully curated to watch in a specific order to gear up for a Halloween marathon. Start with the wintry monster movie, move on to a macabre supernatural thriller, followed by a ramp-up in blood and gore, to then be lulled into a spooky, bump-in-the-night classic, all to end on a ritualistic hunt taking place on Halloween night. This is just getting things started for the first 30-days. Looking forward to sharing the next list to get you through October.
Anyone who follows legendary horror author Stephen King on social media or reads the back of books knows one thing. It’s harder to find something that King hasn’t blurbed than something that he has. The dude is a voracious consumer of genre media, and he finds a lot to love. It’s an admirable quality. But, speaking as someone who saw American Ultra after he praised it, you can’t always trust his recommendations. Today, I’ll cut some of the wheat from the chaff and break down the best modern horror movies he’s recommended.
Three notes: First, I have decided to define “modern” as “2001 or later.” Second, King practices good social media hygiene and has deleted many of his old posts. A lot of them are archived elsewhere. However, it’s more or less impossible to make a truly comprehensive list of his recommendations. I’ve synthesized multiple different sources and done my best to truly encapsulate the breadth of his recommendations. Third, I have not included any adaptations of his own work. He may be outspoken about the ones he doesn’t like, but he’s still obviously biased in that department.
#10 Snakes on a Plane (2006)
To quote King himself (defending putting 2012 among his top 2009 movies), “no filmgoing diet is complete without some cheese.” Snakes on a Plane is a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin movie, delivering high-flying serpentine thrills. However, it’s also a remarkably faithful resurrection of the atmosphere of old 1970s airplane thrillers.
#9 Final Destination 5 (2011)
In his Best of 2011 entry on Final Destination 5, King called it “the best since the first,” and he’s absolutely right. While the sequels probably peaked with the highway prologue in Final Destination 2, the fifth installment is pound-for-pound the most thrilling entry. Between the bridge collapse, the laser eye surgery, and the nail-biting sequence where a screw falls pointy-side-up on a balance beam, there’s no denying there’s real power here. And that’s not even mentioning the fun final twist!
#8 A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
In a since-deleted Tweet, King called Day One “the rare ‘big Hollywood film’ that is both intimate and textured.” It’s true. A Quiet Place: Day One is a mini miracle of horror filmmaking. An IP-drenched prequel to a duology of good-not-great post-apocalyptic popcorn blockbusters shouldn’t be this genuinely stirring. Plus, relative newcomer Joseph Quinn holds his own against the awe-inspiring Lupita Nyong’o, resulting in an all-timer two-hander.
#7 The Strangers (2008)
After watching The Strangers, King took to Entertainment Weekly to pontificate about what makes good horror. If you inspire someone who literally wrote the book on horror to think about it more, you’ve done something right. Bryan Bertino’s home invasion movie is one of the grimmest movies of the 2000s, but its desperate existential dread is terrifying and perfectly in line with King’s best works.
#6 Splice (2009)
King included Splice on his Top 10 list for 2010, particularly praising the “talented actors… who take the material seriously.” How did this grotesque genetic-experimentation horror movie directed by the guy who made Cube land Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley? Who knows. But they breathe life into some already super solid material. What Brody in particular gets up to feels even more twisted because it’s the guy from The Pianist doing it.
#5 Smile (2022)
In a since-deleted Tweet, King called Smile a “good, scary horror film.” He added that “the real surprise is Sosie Bacon as Rose. What a hell of a performance.” Bacon really was a revelation, but so was debut director Parker Finn. His control over tone and pacing leads to some of the best scare sequences of the 2020s.
#4 The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024)
King’s not fucking around about the New Zealand horror film The Rule of Jenny Pen. It’s one of just two horror movies on his New York Times ballot for the best of the 21st century. The underseen movie is a real corker, too. It follows a judge (Geoffrey Rush) recovering in a care home after a stroke. However, his relaxation is ruined by a sadistic retiree (John Lithgow) who is obsessed with his baby doll puppet. Lithgow’s performance is stunning, and his thrillingly dark energy commands the screen every second he’s in front of the camera.
#3 Barbarian (2022)
In a since-deleted reply to a fan’s Tweet about Barbarian, King said “Yeah, that movie blew me away. It was crazy! Crazy GOOD!” This movie contributed what is perhaps the definitive scary basement in horror, which is no small feat. That’s all thanks to director Zach Cregger’s control over onscreen darkness (one of his many skills). The man must be a shadowmancer of some kind.
#2 Train to Busan (2016)
Train to Busan is the only other horror movie on King’s NYT ballot. It has received a lot of international recognition over the years. Perhaps more than any other non-Parasite movie from South Korea. That’s because it’s flipping amazing. Its crackling energy makes it one of the scariest fast-zombie movies in history. But it also marries that with a compelling father-daughter story. There’s really nothing Train to Busan can’t do.
#1 The Descent (2005)
King put The Descent on his 2006 best-of list, calling it “the best horror movie of the year.” Forget that. It’s one of the top horror movies of the century so far. It’s a bloody good monster movie nestled into a skin-crawlingly claustrophobic spelunking movie.
Honorable Mentions:
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – I’ve never seen it, so I can’t in good faith recommend it
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) – A masterpiece, but it’s not really “horror”
Obsession (2026) – We gotta let this one sit, in order to avoid recency bias
