Talk to Me has landed on Netflix UK to give you a chance to catch up on one of the scariest horror movies of the year which is sure to have haunted you long after the credits have rolled.
Directed by Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, the movie follows a group of teenagers with a new dark obsession: to conjure spirits with an embalmed ceramic hand and allow them to possess their bodies.
Of course, it doesn't go well for them especially when Mia (Sophie Wilde) breaks the rules and stays possessed for longer than the 90 seconds recommended.
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The ending of Talk to Me will likely leave you with a major question about what really happened to Mia, especially if you were too busy hiding behind a cushion as the chilling finale played out.
So we're here to help by explaining all about what happened to Mia and what it all means. Major spoilers ahead.
Talk to Me ending explained: What happens to Mia?
Apparently, the spirits trapped inside the hand are always looking to draw more souls into their personal purgatory by exploiting people's grief, pain and darkest desires.
That's how they are able to get into Mia's head after the first contact, giving her what she was desperately seeking for: to finally know if her mother committed suicide, or if her death was due to an accidental overdose.
Mia begins to get lost in the spirit's carefully planned manipulation, dragging young Riley (Joe Bird) into touching the embalmed hand for way too long thinking he had been possessed by her mother's spirit.
In the movie's most shocking scene, Riley smashes his head on the furniture and pops his own eye out. The moment is so disturbing they forget to blow out the candle that would cut the teen's link to the spirits' realm.
No, that was never Mia's mother talking through Riley's mouth. Mia is being tricked by an evil spirit who, for some reason, wants Riley to die and join their ranks.
With Riley recovering in hospital while still possessed, Mia gets tricked once again by the evil spirit, who reveals her mother didn't commit suicide, which later contradicts the goodbye letter her father hands to her after all this time so she can have some closure.
It doesn't take much convincing for Mia to distrust her father, eventually stabbing him thinking he wanted to hurt her.
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Mia then heads to the hospital, where she picks up Riley and takes him on a wheelchair to the edge of the highway, convinced killing him is the only way to liberate him from the hell he's currently living in. Again, the spirits are manipulating her.
But they will do it no more. She snaps out of that control and decides at the last minute to throw herself onto the busy highway instead of Riley.
In the ending of Talk to Me, Mia unmistakably dies.
While it's not clear when we see her wandering around the road right after the accident, her tragic fate is confirmed when she is transported to the hospital. She sees her dad and Riley alive and healed, ready to return home.
Suddenly, the hallway's lights start to die and darkness surrounds her. A small light leads her to a hand reaching out to her. Mia grabs it, finding herself standing in front of a group of young people who are using the embalmed hand to conjure spirits, just as she herself did at the beginning of the movie.
Mia is now another spirit trapped inside the hand, condemned to be endlessly summoned by reckless youngsters looking for an exciting ride.
When the stranger says the magic words — "Talk to me" — we know what will come next. Mia will possess his body, hopefully for less than 90 seconds. We don't get to see that, though, as Talk to Me ends there, leaving viewers completely stunned.
"I really wanted it to be open to interpretation. There's so many parts to the ending, where we've just left nuggets and hints and things throughout," co-director and writer Danny Philippou explained following the movie's release.
"If you go and rewatch the film, and really analyse what's happening in every frame, there's things that are… there. I can't wait for someone to break it down and find every single piece and put the puzzle together. Everything has meaning."
Michael Phillippou added in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment that it was always Mia's fate to die and become one of the spirits:
"We wanted to tell a tragedy, and Mia's making the wrong decisions throughout the film and being stripped of every ounce of intimacy. I hope people will empathise with her, but then also understand the mistakes that she's making… and not make them themselves."
Who knows though, maybe we'll see Mia again in the already-confirmed sequel Talk 2 Me.
Talk to Me is available to watch on Netflix UK and is available to buy in the UK from Prime Video, iTunes and Altitude.Film.
Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
