Talk to Me (2023)-- Ending Explained with spoilers

 

Plot: Mia and her friends use an embalmed hand to play a game where they let themselves be possessed by spirits. Things go wrong when Mia becomes obsessed with it.

Imagine being able to talk to wandering spirits around us. And these spirits don't look like the ones in other horror movies. They are bloated, have charred skins, and bulging eyes.

Would you really want to talk to them and let them possess you for a short while.

Doesn't look like a fun thing to do but for a group of friends it's like the best thing ever!

TALK TO ME is a fun horror movie. The trailer hardly does justice to how gripping the movie can be. But most of it has to do with the acting capabilities of all the actors, especially Sophie Wilde.

She carries the movie on her capable shoulders and manages to pull off a convincing and laudable performance.

TALK TO ME is compelling for the most part however the ending is a bit of a let down. The story gets jumbled and is hastily wrapped up.

But watch the movie anyway and you'll be surprised to find that it doesn't rely on clichés and jump scares.

It actually gives you the creeps.

TALK TO ME Plot

At a party, Cole is searching for his brother all around the house before he finds a locked door. He breaks open the door and pulls out his shirtless brother. His brother seems off and so everyone thinks its a good idea to film him so that they can put their videos on social media.

Cole tells them to stop but his brother stabs him. Everyone runs out screaming but he isn’t done freaking out people yet. He stabs himself in the eye, scaring everyone.

We then meet a brooding Mia. She has just lost her mother to an accidental overdose. Her relationship with her father is estranged and she avoids taking his calls.

Mia is best friends with Jade and hangs out a lot with Jade's younger brother Riley.

Mia considers Jade's family as her own.

One evening, she offers to pick up Riley who was hanging out with his friend. On the way they scream out the 'Chandelier' song. Mia suddenly goes quiet when she sees what's up on the road ahead. Riley ceases singing too.

Mia puts the brakes and sees a kangaroo who has been badly injured. Riley suggests putting it out of its misery and Mia initiallu agrees but then stops short of the kangaroo's head. She can't do it and instead drives away from the kangaroo.

Riley reminds her it was a bad idea but Mia is unable to perform a mercy killing. This scene obviously comes into play later in the story. Mia is going to be faced with a similar dilemma towards the end, right? Right.

Anyway, they reach home and Mia finds Jade in her room, distracted. Jade wants to go to a party where her boyfriend Daniel will be. Mia isn’t that interested. She just came close to killing a kangaroo today after all.

Jade manages to convince her but Riley has overheard them and wants to go too. Jade says no and Riley reminds her she doesn't want their mother to know why she didn't pick him up and why Mia had to. Jade was using which is why she was unable to drive. She relents and off Riley goes to the party with them.

At the party, the friends are all gathered and Hayley, the host of the party, suggests they play a really cool game with an embalmed hand that supposedly belonged to a psychic and who had their hand cut off. Hayley believes there may be a real hand under all that covering on which foreign words are scribbled.

Mia watches Daniel and Jade and offers to go first. Clearly, she has a thing for Daniel.

Mia holds the hand and says "Talk to Me". She finds a grotesque looking man in a suit, with cloudy bulging eyes. She freaks out but braves another turn. This time she sees a bloated woman whose skin is blue and has bulging eyes too. The next step of the game? To say "I let you in."

Immediately the grotesque soul is given permission to possess Mia. What a great idea! Hayley starts the timer. The possession shouldn't go for more than 90 seconds.

Mia speaks in a rough and deep voice. She looks at Riley who is freaking out and gives him a chilling smile. She tells him to run.

The actress who plays Mia, Sophie Wilde, gives a terrific performance that will send chills down your spine.

Mia is released from her possession and she claims to have had an exhilarating experience. Which means that the friends definitely want to include this game in their next get-together.

The next day, Jade's mother Sue, who appears to be working as a nurse, feels that something is up when Daniel shows up at the house. She demands to know if he is here for a party. Daniel plays dumb and claims to know nothing about a party. Sue then barges into Jade's room where her daughter is hanging out with Mia.

Both girls assure her there is no party as Daniel joins in. Sue tries to get Riley to tell the truth but he feigns innocence too. Sue leaves, not satsified with the answers but realizing she isn't going to get a straight answer.

Call it mother's instinct. She sensed danger and tried to stop it. If only they had listened to her, Riley would have been safe.

Just as Sue had suspected, the friends meet up once again and rather than partying like normal kids, they want to play the possessed by a ghost game.

Everyone takes a turn and so does Daniel who ends up being possessed by someone who likes to make out with dogs. Unfortunately for him his friends take a video of him and he gets embarrassed.

Afterwards, Riley suggests taking a turn. Jade is dead against it and storms off. Riley pleads with Mia who wants to be the cool elder sister he doesn't have. Hayley warns that they will keep it short since Riley is young. Mia suggests 60 seconds and Riley gets super excited about getting possessed by a gross looking ghost.

Riley starts and gets stunned. He is encouraged to let the ghost in. The friends are giggling until Mia realizes the ghost possessing Riley is her mother. She wants to talk to the ghost and in spite of Hayley informing her that the time limit has ended, she pushes further.

But apparently the ghost no longer wants to and begins to smash his head against the table. Mia is aghast. Jade runs in with Daniel and tries to stop her brother from smashing his skull by putting her hand underneath. However her efforts only lead to a broken hand. Eventually, Riley starts to pull out his eye and Mia manages to finally stop him.

While the police and medics arrive, Mia sneakily steals the embalmed hand so she can speak to her mother later.

At the hospital, Riley is in really bad shape. Mia comes to visit only to be told to get lost by Sue and Jade.  Mia is on the verge of a breakdown but Daniel comforts her.

Throughout the movie, Mia avoids taking her father's calls and barely speaks to him when he tries to talk to her. If only she had spoken to him, things wouldn’t have gone so wrong for her later on.

Mia and Daniel get close to the point that Daniel decides to have a sleepover at Mia's because she is so upset. In the middle of the night, Mia wakes up to find that grotesque ghost she had seen in her first session. The ghost seems to find Daniel's toes tasty and begins sucking on it as if they were lollipops.

Mia screams at Daniel to wake up. When he wakes up, he sees Mia, her eyes white, sucking on his foot.  He pulls away waking up Mia who tries to convince him that it wasn't her but a ghost. Daniel is too freaked out by the foot fetish to stay another instant.

Mia decides to use the stolen hand to talk to her mother.  She sees her mother who assures her that her death was accidental and that she misses Mia and wishes she never had to leave her. She then talks to her about Riley and how he is in a lot of pain.

At the hospital, Riley has come to and exhibiting bizarre behavior. He keeps wanting to hurt himself and Jade has a tough time trying to protect him. He even bites her as she tries to save him. Luckily, the doctors rush in and manage to sedate Riley before he smashes his skull against the bathroom wall.

Mia goes to Hayley and asks for his help. She finds out that Joss was given the hand by Cole who didn’t want anything to do with it after what it did to his brother. Remember the party scene in the beginning of the movie?

They track down who Cole who advises them that the soul possessing Riley would eventually weaken and let him go. He also claims that his brother started to see spirits without using the hand. Mia is too, but she doesn’t want to heed his warning just yet.

But Mia doesn't want to wait it out.

She goes to see Jade and manages to convince her that the only way to save Riley is by completing the game since they didn't end the game when Riley was possessed.

Jade okays this and Mia grabs Riley's limp hand and plays the game as per the rules. Surprise, surprise! The game doesn’t work because Riley isn’t conscious enough to play the game.

Mia decides to use the game to find Riley. She finds herself in the corridor of the hospital being led by a girl to a room where there are witch-like beings feeding on a distraught Riley.

When Mia comes back she informs Jade that Riley is suffering and the souls don't intend to let him go easily.

Mia goes home later and this time her father forces her to listen to what he has to say. He reveals that her mother did in fact commit suicide and even left behind a note.

Mia breaksdown and goes to her room where she finds her mother who tells her that her father is lying. She then advises her that since Riley is suffering she needs to put him out of his misery. Like she should have done with the kangaroo.

Her father wants to speak to her and barges in. Downstairs, we see her father sitting calmly in the living room. Uh-oh...

Mia is attacked by the spirit disguised as her father. She finds a pair of scissors and considers using it. Hearing the ruckus, her real father finally gets up and goes to see his daughter. He finds her writhing on the floor and goes to help her.

Mia picks that moment to use the scissors to stab the evil ghost. Except it is father on top of her now, checking up on her. When Mia realizes what she has done, she freaks out but after some time, realizes what she must do now.

Mia calls Jade and tells her that she has a plan to help Riley but that she must come to her house. Jade agrees to meet her, unaware that Mia is at the hospital already, watching her.

TALK TO ME Ending Explained

Mia goes to see Sue who tells her that it wasn't her fault that Riley has been behaving crazy. Mia asks if she can see him privately and Sue agrees.

Mia tries to kill Riley with the same blood-stained scissors she killed her father with. But just like with the kangaroo, she chickens out.

Meanwhile, tired of waiting outside, Jade ventures into Mia's house and finds the murder victim: Mia's father. Horrified, she calls her mother who tells her that Mia was here. When Sue returns to see her son, she finds him gone.

Jade sees Mia pushing Riley up on a wheelchair and follows him.

Mia keeps seeing an old man instead of Riley and tries to ignore his taunts. They arrive at the top of the hill where Mia's mother encourages her to roll Riley down the hill and onto oncoming traffic.

In the next scene, a car hits somebody and brakes to a halt. It's not Riley. It's Mia.

Now either Mia inherited her mother's suicidal tendencies and would rather kill herself than another person, or Jade pushed her down. This isn't made clear. All we know for sure is that Mia is gone.

Her spirits wakes up and she finds herself at the hospital. She sees her father getting into a lift but can't reach him. Did her father survive? Jade did find him breathing after all.

Mia sees Riley getting better and going home with his family. The spirits must have let him go after Mia's connection to the other world was broken after her death.

Mia finds herself in a void for a little while before she finds a light.  She follows it and finds a hand reaching for her.

She realizes she's in a cabin of men who are playing the game. The man says in a foreign language that he is letting her in.

Clearly, the hand has been sold online and bought by someone from another country.

The movie ends.

TALK TO ME is genuinely terrifying although it lacks clarity towards the end. How did Riley get better? Is Mia's father alive?

Just how did the embalmed hand find its way to the group of men at the end? Or is it another hand?

TALK TO ME has already had a sequel greenlit. Titled TALK 2 ME, the movie will hopefully clear out doubts from this movie.

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