A24 is something of an everyman in the world of cinema, perhaps best exemplified by its genre anarchist of a Best Picture winner in Everything Everywhere All at Once, but one would nevertheless be forgiven for arguing that horror is the studio’s bread and butter; indeed, between the likes of Hereditary, Midsommar, Ti West’s X trilogy, Bodies Bodies Bodies, among countless other bone-chilling titles, A24 knows how to deliver the shivers.
It’s also not afraid to hedge its bets on newcomers, and that’s exactly what it did in the case of Talk to Me, a supernatural horror film and the feature-length directorial debut of Danny and Michael Philippou (better known by their joint YouTube persona RackaRacka). Ever since its premiere at last year’s Adelaide Film Festival, it’s maintained a mighty 97 percent critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and judging by this brand-new trailer, this is one film that’s really going to speak to audiences.
Talk to Me stars Sophie Wilde as Mia, a young teenager who finds herself subjected to peer pressure in the form of contacting the spirit world with a grotesque severed hand, all while her peers stand by and giddily film what’s no doubt going to be a pulse-pounding debacle. Indeed, as luck would have it, the spirits don’t take kindly to being sent home after returning to the land of the living, and the resulting tantrums look nothing short of life-threatening.
Talk to Me will release to theaters in the United States on July 28.