The new buzzy A24 horror movie, Talk to Me, is now available to purchase on digital platforms like Amazon Prime. That means you can now give yourself nightmares from the comfort of your couch, for the low, low price of $19.99!
This breakout indie hit, which had its world premiere at Sundance in January, comes from Australian YouTubes Danny and Michael Philippou. Thanks to social media and word of mouth, Talk To Me managed to become A24’s highest-grossing horror movie in the U.S., surpassing Hereditary, and taking home over $46 million at the domestic box office so far. With an original supernatural plot and a compelling performance from Sophie Wilde (known for her TV roles like Eden and You Don’t Know Me), it’s easy to see why the film has captured the attention of audiences.
But those watching the film for the first time at home this week may find themselves confused. Don’t worry, because Decider is here to help. Read on for a breakdown of the Talk To Me plot summary and the Talk To Me ending, explained.
The movie opens on a teenager named Cole, searching for his younger brother Duckett at a house party. When Cole finally finds Duckett, it’s clear Duckett is in a bad way. We see exactly how bad when Duckett stabs his brother with a knife, and then uses that same knife to kill himself. Yikes!
Cut to our protagonist, Mia (Sophie Wilde), a 17-year-old girl who wants to go out and party on the two-year anniversary of her mother’s death. Specifically, she wants to go to a party she’s seen on social media hosted by fellow teens Hayley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss (Chris Alosio), who appear to be doing some sort of dark, demonic possession magic on the partygoers. Mia’s BFF Jade (Alexandra Jensen)—whose family Mia has been staying with frequently after her mom’s death—thinks it’s all fake. Mia wants to see for herself. So together, along with Jade’s 15-year-old brother Riley (Joe Bird), they sneak out and head to the demon party.
At the party, Mia volunteers to be the one who gets possessed by a demon. It’s a simple matter of grasping a ceramic, embalmed hands and uttering the words “Talk to me.” This prompts a demon/spirit to appear, seen only by the person holding a hand. Then the person holding the hand says, “I let you in,” and boom: Demonic possession! Hayley warns Mia that the connection needs to be severed before 90 seconds pass, or else the demon may try to stay in the human it’s possessing.
Mia does exactly as she’s told. She’s possessed by a particularly strong spirit that seems interested in Jade’s little brother, Riley. When Joss tries to pull Mia off the hand before 90 seconds are up, the demon pushes him away. Hayley and Joss eventually manage to severe the connection, but not until after the 90 seconds have come and gone. Oh well. It’s probably fine! That night, while Mia and Riley are lying side by side in the living room, a demonic hand gently caresses Riley’s face. That’s probably fine, too!
Mia has such a great time being possessed by a demon that she and Jade decide they want to do it again. This time, they bring Jade’s boyfriend, Daniel (Otis Dhanji). Mia and Daniel used to date when they were kids, but are totally just friends now. Daniel volunteers to be the possess-ee. The spirit who takes over him insults Jade and begins masturbating in Daniel’s body. While Daniel is humping the floor, Jade’s dog comes over and licks his mouth, much to the disgust and delight of the other teens filming the incident on their phone. This turns into a wild and crazy night of demonic possession.
Riley begs to have a turn with the hand, but Jade forbids it. When Jade leaves the room, Mia tells Riley he can have a short turn—only 50 seconds, instead of 90. But Riley isn’t possessed by any old spirit. He’s possessed, ostensibly, by the spirit of Mia’s dead mother. The other teens try to sever the connection after 50 seconds, but Mia begs for more time to speak with her mom. At first, Mia’s “mom” is saying nice, heartfelt things. But then something changes. The spirit slams Riley’s head into the table, tries to claw out Riley’s eye, and smashes him into a glass console before the kids finally get the hand off of him.
Riley is taken to the hospital and is in very bad shape. Mia uses the hand again to have a conversation with her “mom,” to ask a question that’s been bothering her: Was the overdose really accidental? Or did her mom kill herself? “Mom” tells Mia that it was absolutely accidental. She never would have left Mia voluntarily.
Mia continues to see weird visions and demons even when she’s not holding the hand. Riley, meanwhile, is not doing well. Every time he regains consciousness, the demon in his body tries to kill him. Mia uses the hand near Riley in the hospital and sees him being tortured by demons. Back at home, she has a conversation with her dad. Mia’s father says that her mother did, in fact, take her own life, and left a suicide note. The demon mom tells Mia that her father is lying, and also that Riley is suffering and needs to die. Mia hallucinates that she is being attacked by a spirit that looks like her dad, and when her father tries to help her, she stabs him in the neck.
Mia, now nearly completely possessed by the spirits, is convinced that the only way to “save” Riley is to kill him, in order to put him out of his misery. This is foreshadowed by a scene at the beginning of the film, in which Riley and Mia find a dying kangaroo on the road. Riley begs Mia to put the animal out of its misery, but Mia can’t bring herself to do it. Now it seems Mia, not in her right mind, believes that this is her chance to make up for that cowardice.
Mia lures Jade away from her hospital and to her house. There, Jade finds Mia’s father bleeding out and calls him an ambulance. She also calls her mother and warns her that Mia is dangerous and might hurt Riley. Meanwhile, Mia breaks Riley out of the hospital and wheels him to the side of a busy highway. As cars zoom by, Mia’s demon mother whispers to her that she is proud of her and that she’s doing the right thing. Mia seems to realize that she is not, in fact, doing the right thing, and she takes her hands off of Riley’s wheelchair.
Instead, Mia runs into traffic and is hit by a car. When she wakes up in the street, she sees Jade taking care of Riley on the side of the road. Suddenly, Mia finds herself walking through the halls of a hospital, but everything is distorted and weird. She sees Riley, now a human again reunited with his family. She sees her own father walking alone. No one can hear her. Everyone leaves, ignoring her screams not to leave her alone.
In the final scene of the movie, Mia finds herself in a dark void. Suddenly, she sees a light. She walks toward it and sees it’s a candle, with a hand reaching out. She grasps the hand and finds herself thrust into a party with a bunch of Greek dudes. The man holding her hand stares at her in horror. His buddy urges him to “say the words.” He does: “I let you in”
And with that, the movie ends. So what does the Talk to Me ending mean? It means that Mia is now one of the demons that possesses people, of course! Because she was possessed by the demon for more than 90 seconds at the start of the movie, they started to slowly close in on her. Then, she killed herself by jumping in front of a car, and they were able to take her completely. Now what she feared would happen to Riley has happened to her: She will be a demon forever, doomed to only see the real world whenever the next idiot at a party uses the embalmed hand. Fun!
Yes! Last month, A24 greenlit a Talk to Me sequel, after the first film blew past box office expectations. Directors Danny and Michael Philippou will return to helm the project, but other plot and cast details have not yet been revealed.
Danny and Michael Philippou have also said they have completed filming a prequel movie that will explore the origins of the character Duckett, aka the boy who was possessed by the hand at the beginning of the movie. The prequel film was shot as a story told entirely via cell phone video and social media. The directors hope to release it in the future. “If A24 gave us the opportunity, we wouldn’t be able to resist. I feel like we’d jump at it,” Danny Philippou told The Hollywood Reporter. It’s not clear yet if the ordered sequel will be the prequel, or something different.
Hopefully the next Talk to Me film will give us a few more details on where, exactly, that mysterious hand came from.