Youngsters are going to do silly stuff. However what does being terminally on-line do to IRL relationships when the whole web is within the palm of your hand? In that world, what does actual connection even appear to be?
These had been a few of the many questions posed by Speak to Me, the brand new horror movie from directing duo Danny and Michael Philippou. This film isn’t actually concerning the web, which kinds an invisible presence within the background, reaching in to affect the characters’ lives. In that approach, it’s not not like the deceased spirits the movie’s protagonists try to contact.
However I’m getting forward of myself.
Speak to Me facilities on Mia (Sophia Wild), a youngster who turned shut with brother-sister pair Riley and Jade (Joe Chicken and Alexandra Jensen) following the dying of her mom. At a home celebration, one of many trio’s mates produces a mysterious ceramic hand, etched with cryptic writing. Mild a candle, maintain the hand, say the titular line, and the totem can deliver anybody face-to-face with a random lifeless individual’s ghost. With one other voice command, the hand may even let the spirit into their physique for a short time.
Whereas the premise appears like so many different films about teenagers dabbling in the dead of night arts, every of the seances are shot like they’re in your stoner good friend’s basement in faculty. One after the other, the children are possessed whereas the others pull out their telephones and snigger at how strung out they get. Then the children submit the movies on-line, regardless of their mates’ protests.
With this framing, a lot of the horror within the movie comes not from anonymous hell spawn, however from the callousness with which friends bully one another—and the worry of dropping what discovered household you continue to have. In truth, for a lot of the movie, letting a lifeless individual possess the children’ our bodies is nearly portrayed as innocent enjoyable. Don’t keep possessed for too lengthy; don’t take too excessive a dose of the underworld—however so long as you’re protected, it must be wonderful.
Issues solely begin to go off the rails when the spirits turn out to be extra acquainted. This ties in to the movie’s themes of connection, grief, and coping mechanisms. However what I discover most fascinating is how the characters are egged on by the strain of social media.
Whereas that’s not the main focus of the film, it’s arduous to keep away from, provided that the administrators obtained their begin on YouTube. The twins have been creating movies since earlier than they had been youngsters, and in not less than one occasion, one among them was arrested for a stunt that concerned driving a automobile full of water.
It’s arduous to not really feel that additional weight when the telephones come out. Youngsters are being peer-pressured to take a success of supernatural powers that none of them can management. And once they get freaked out or terrified by what they expertise, nicely, that’s #content material, child.
Speak to Me doesn’t dwell on the web itself—there’s no montage of likes and feedback and even any indication of whether or not anybody’s watching the movies in any respect. The film issues itself extra with how the strain to carry out can have an effect on the one who’s captured on digital camera.