Talk to Me Leaves Netflix — Still A24’s Scariest Film

Over the past decade A24 has become shorthand for contemporary horror among many fans — but that reputation can be misleading. While the distributor has released some genuinely unsettling fare (a few sequences in Hereditary still haunt me), much of its recent output favors social satire and surreal atmosphere over outright fright. Films like Opus and Lamb lean into oddity and commentary rather than sheer terror. One of A24’s exceptions, though, is a small Australian shocker that actually aims to scare.

Released in 2023, Talk to Me is a lean, fright-first indie filmed on a modest budget and later picked up by A24. It connected with critics and audiences alike and went on to become the company’s top-grossing horror release at the time, eclipsing Hereditary. Its success is a reminder that bona fide scares still draw a crowd.

Talk to Me is available to stream on Netflix for a limited window and is scheduled to depart the service at the end of September, with plans for an HBO Max run beginning in October. Below are the essentials about why the movie stands out and what to expect before you press play.

Talk to Me follows Mia (Sophie Wilde), an Adelaide teenager still raw from her mother’s death a year earlier. At a house party a classmate reveals a macabre curiosity — a preserved human hand that, when held and concentrated upon, momentarily allows contact with the dead. The teenagers treat the ritual like a dare and an illicit thrill (the movie’s language makes the comparison to drug experimentation clear). Mia, desperate for connection, becomes obsessed. She violates a crucial rule — never hold the hand for more than 90 seconds — and in doing so unleashes something far more dangerous than a fleeting visitation.

Directors Danny and Michael Philippou, better known online as RackaRacka for their VFX-driven YouTube shorts, bring an impressively tactile approach to the film’s scares. Their blend of practical and digital effects makes the hand’s consequences feel viscerally real: early jolts frequently arrive as sharp edits that expose decay and grotesque revenants in a sudden, stomach-dropping reveal.

Beyond shocks, the film’s emotional core is grief. Mia’s decisions are rooted in loss, which makes them tragically understandable — not contrived. Because the viewer can empathize with her yearning and misjudgments, each consequence lands with greater weight; watching well-intentioned choices ripple into catastrophe is what intensifies the dread.

And the ending pays off. The Philippous build steadily toward a harrowing climax that provokes a physical reaction — clenched jaws, uneasy breathing — and then deliver a final twist that can unsettle even hardened horror fans.

The directors returned in May 2025 with Bring Her Back, a film that shares loose ties to Talk to Me and reportedly features a nearly hidden Sophie Wilde cameo. That follow-up leans even deeper into grotesque territory but trades some of the original’s levity and pacing — the comedic beats and lighter moments in Talk to Me help the scares land harder. At times, nothing substitutes for the pure, unadorned terror of a well-crafted horror picture.

Source: Polygon