One of the promises of YouTube is that it could make anyone into a filmmaker. A site where everyone can upload anything they can capture on a camera should've democratized the distribution world, right? Instead, the realm of YouTube curdled almost immediately into its own self-contained, venomous ecosystem. Most uploads go unnoticed in an ever-expanding sea of content, with the more successful creators forced to cater to an arbitrary algorithm and the whims of an attention-eroding media landscape. YouTube favors folks who talk about stuff and ruthless marketers, not so much individual artists. Yet, rarely, it happens. Twin brothers Danny and Michael Phillippou forged a following with their RackaRacka YouTube channel. While their meme-y prank videos didn't suggest much innovation, the brothers managed to segue their viral success into an actual movie deal. Their debut feature, "Talk to Me," would become the talk of this year's Sundance Film Festival. The tidal way of hype would lead to A24 scooping up the movie. The company put the supernatural horror film on theater screens world-wide this past summer, where the press immediately declared it the latest scariest movie ever. Time for me to be the judge of that.
Set in the Phillippous' native Adelaide, "Talk to Me" follows teenager Mia. Still recovering from her mother's fatal overdose – which Mia believes was accidental – she has found solace with her best friend Jade's family, which includes little brother Riley and new boyfriend Daniel. While at a party, Mia is introduced to a strange artifact: A ceramic hand, which supposedly belonged to a medium, that can summons the spirits of the dead. All you have to do is grip it and say "talk to me" to make a spectre appear. An invitation of "Come into me" allows the ghost to inhabit your body and communicate with the living. Though risky, Mia and her friends treat the ritual like a game. Soon, Mia becomes obsessed with the process, believing she can communicate with her late mother. Yet malevolent entities wait on the other side and it's not long before Mia, Jade, and their loved ones are in horrible danger.
From the minute it was established that Mia is still recovering from the trauma of her mother's death, I kind of expected “Talk to Me” to be one of those “elevated” horror movies all about grief. While her inability to healthily process her mom's death is undeniably part of Mia's journey, the film has more on its mind than that. Her mother's death pushes her apart from her father. The horrible incident with the magical hand separates her from Jade and her family, before an ill-advised cuddle with Daniel further pushes Mia away from her best friend. In her loneliness, Mia keeps turning to the hand because it provides her with a sense of hope. It's a distinctly false form of hope too, the otherworldly spirits soon revealed as manipulative. Whether you read this as a direct metaphor for drug addiction or not, “Talk to Me” becomes an effecting portrayal of teenage isolation. Sophie Wilde's performance, fearless and wide-eyed, further makes Mia's descent seem like more than just typical adolescent angst.
Yet sometimes one misstep is enough for a movie to totally loose a viewer. “Talk to Me” features a rather contrived event in its last third. The exact rules governing the malevolent spirits are fuzzy, which I'm used to with the horror genre. Somehow, such a series of events are orchestrated to leave Mia even more alone and traumatized as we head into the climax. It's the only time the film feels too clever for its own good, the story bending in such a way to catch the audience off-guard and not because it's a natural escalation of the plot. That left a bad taste in my mouth, putting me off a film that was otherwise a potent dose of dread and shock. Sometimes, you have to ask if a movie is telling a story in order to express something personal or if it's just fucking with the audience.
Perdues dans New York
Somehow, it's been eleven years since I first discovered the dreamy, sleazy, campy, and enchanting films of Jean Rollin. Rollin's cult following is founded upon the equally surreal, erotic, and comical vampire films he made in the seventies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, movies that straddle the line between the art house and the grindhouse were not always commercially successful. Rollin would spend many years directing hardcore pornography, just to pay the bills. By the end of the eighties, it really seemed like his best years as a filmmaker were behind him. That was when a chance to shoot in New York City prompted Rollin to return to many of the themes that defined his most beloved work. The resulting film, “Lost in New York,” only ran for 58 minutes and debuted on French TV. Unseen for years, it would eventually be rediscovered by Rollin scholars.
Even by the standards of Rollin's films, “Lost in New York's” plot is vague. I'll do my best to sum it up. An old woman named Michelle recalls her childhood best friend, Marie. The two bonded over a wooden idol they called the Moon Goddesses. They used the statue to travel in and out of their favorite story books and films, as well as moving through time and space. As girls in their twenties, they both arrive in New York City. Marie and Michelle run through the streets of Manhattan, attempting to find one another and be reunited. The elderly Michelle reflects on these dreams and memories, while seemingly the living manifestation of their childhood goddess dances in the distance. And, because it's a Rollin movie, a cemetery and a vampire show up too.
Being a dream, “Lost in New York” is much concerned with imagination. As children, a story book transported the girls to other places. Yet, as the elderly Michelle describes these travels, she's actually describing movies. “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “Modern Times,” and “Eyes Without a Face” are all name-dropped alongside several of Rollins' own films. Here, the director seems to be arguing for the transformative power of art, while also comparing movies to memories. Michelle is recollecting all of this, after all. The old woman longs to return to the childhood innocence of her friendship with Marie. In its final, touching moments, “Lost in New York” suggests that even death cannot truly separate us from those we love and that all lost bonds will be renewed on the other side.
As much as “Lost in New York” feels like a final statement by the director on his body work, it would not be his last movie. Rollins would actually make five more movies before his death in 2010, including several that touched upon the camp horror concepts that made him famous. “Lost in New York” belatedly brings Rollin's style into the eighties, with a slithering synth soundtrack, but still feels like a throwback to the groovy seventies. Especially when a comical sproing sound effect is used when the girls teleport across the globe, one last goofy joke in a film more concerned with putting a point on things. Recently, a restored version was released on Arrow's streaming service, really allowing “Lost in New York” to be rediscovered by Rollin's obsessives, where it has been properly evaluated as one of the most intriguing, beguiling, and important works of the director's career. [9/10]
If there's anything I've learned from horror movies and thriller stories, it's that picking up a hitchhiker is never a good idea. I'm not surprised that Roald Dahl, prolific writer that he was, put his own spin on this particular genre trope. Nor that such a story would be adapted for “Tales of the Unexpected.” “The Hitch-Hiker” begins with Paul, an American writer, traveling across Ireland in his new automobile. He picks up a hitchhiker, an eccentric fellow named Fish, who talks him into testing out the car's speed capabilities. When a highway patrolman pulls him over for speeding, Paul is none too pleased. Afterwards, Fish reveals that he's an exceptionally fast “fingersmith,” able to steal a man's belt off without him even noticing. And Paul's luck only gets worst from there.
As far as hitchhikers from anthology shows go, Fish here is more on the mischievous than the outright murderous side. Considering the setting and the seemingly magical slight-of-hand Fish displays, I can't help but wonder if he's not meant to be a leprechaun or other fairy being. (At least in a metaphorical sense, if not literally.) After all, he's able to snatch Paul's shoelaces off while he's driving. Much like you'd expect from such an impish spirit, Fish isn't done playing tricks on the man foolish enough to give him a ride. Since this is “Tales of the Unexpected,” the story ends in a twist ending that isn't exactly shocking though is a suitably ironic place to end things.
“The Fregosi Emerald” starts with Marilyn's birthday party. Eddie gifts her a ring he found in the attic. Grandpa claims it is the cursed Fregosi Emerald. Marilyn's date that night goes horribly, suggesting the curse is real. Herman is skeptical, slipping the ring on himself and immediately having bad luck befall him. The ring is stuck to his finger, forcing Grandpa to find the sole descendant to the Fregosi family to remove the curse. In “Zombo,” Eddie has developed a fascination of the titular TV horror host. Herman is jealous of his son looking up to another monster, prompting him to extreme measures. When Eddie wins a contest to meet Zombo, he's disappointed that his hero is just an actor and not an actual ghoul.
Herman doubting the existence of a cursed ring feels like a stretch, considering everything else about him. “The Fregosi Emerald” starts off kind of slow, as far as these things go, with a lack of laughs in the first few minutes. “The Munsters” being the show that it is, more laughs are produced the broader things go. Lily's muffins exploding or Herman immediately having stuff fall on him the minute he slips on the ring is a good chuckle. Things get even wackier as the story progresses, eventually coming to involve a Transylvanian operator with New York accent and a warlock posing as the head of an auto company. The final minutes are a nice expansion of the episode's central premise.
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