This story is going to get into spoilers for the new A24 horror film Talk to Me, so stop reading now if you don’t want to know anything about the plot. And seriously, go see this movie right now. It’s playing in a theater near you.
It’s one of the biggest questions that people have as they leave Talk to Me, an incredible new horror movie by first-time directors Danny and Michael Philippous. Where did the hand that’s central to the plot come from? What is the hand’s origin? There are some lines of dialogue in the screenplay explaining how it had been handed down (no pun intended) from person to person, with each group getting hooked on the supernatural experience it provided. But there has to be more to that story… especially when you get to the film’s ending, and where it leaves the main character, Mia (Sophie Wilde).
Following the movie’s opening weekend, during which it racked up an impressive $10.4 million on 2,300 screens, we got a chance to interview Danny and Michael Philippous about the movie’s success, and plans for the future. They have already gone on record as saying that they would be open to a Talk to Me sequel. But I asked them if they’d want to start revealing more details about the hand’s past in a follow up movie, or if those are details they’d like to keep close to the vest. And Danny opened up to us by saying:
I think that we would expand on the mythology a little bit in the sequel. But who knows? It's so weird, because I started writing scenes for a sequel when I was writing the first film. Naturally, once you start writing, you can't stop and you get excited about, ‘What happens after this? What is this stage?’ So. I don’t know. I just felt like I won't know until I do it, but I'm so open to expanding the mythology and explaining some of it. But also, yeah, leaving the allure of the mystery is also exciting. So I don't know what middle ground I'll end up finding, but yeah, we'll find it.
This very much sounds like Danny and Michael Philippous are planning to move ahead with Talk to Me 2, if Danny feels confident that he will discover that middle ground between peeling back some of the layer of the hand, but also maintaining some of the mystery so that audiences are terrified of the unknown. Crowd reaction to Talk to Me has been outstanding, with so many viewers claiming it to be one of the scariest movies they have seen in years. That sentiment made its way into our Talk to Me review, as well.
And there have been multiple horror franchises that lose some of their appeal by overly explaining the mythology behind what creeps folks out. So I agree with the guys when they say it’s important to find the middle ground, to reveal some details about the hand, while still maintaining the dark secrets of the series.
Talk to Me is a must see. It’s in theaters as we speak.
