Horror is one of my favorite movie genres to watch, but I am usually bored of the mundane and repetitive scenes I see on screen. A24 continues to set trends in the world of cinema, and their latest film Talk to Me, exemplifies how they break norms in the horror category.

In this video, “FoundFlix” says that the hand, which is used as a channel to let the spirit enter the body of the teens, is an analogy for one of the film’s themes of drug use. There is a scene in the movie where the teens go round for round using the hand, letting a plethora of spirits possess them. The continue to emphasize that they can only use the hand for 90 seconds, because any more time after that is dangerous. Much like how if you use too much of a drug you may overdose. As the teen gets possessed by the spirit, they throw their head back and their pupils get extremely big and dark, a slightly dramatized display of how someone may look when they take drugs.

The fact that we have an unreliable narrator also makes the story more captivating. We see Mia abusing the use of the hand, even going to the point of stealing it and taking it home. In the scene where Mia sees the gross lady sucking Daniel’s toes, I wondered “Why isn’t her dad coming to see what’s going on, she’s screaming so loud.” We then saw Daniel waking up in horror, to the sigh of Mia sucking his toes. Another example of the aforementioned drug use theme, Mia gets addicted to using the hand, repeatedly getting possessed just to feel something after the tragic loss of her mother, much like how some people get addicted to drugs just to feel something, for a temporary escape.

If you couldn’t tell by this post, I genuinely loved Talk to Me as a film, and is easily one of the best horror films of 2023. I recommend to anyone with eyes.