Danny and Michael Phillippou’s Talk to Me is a remarkable debut for the two Australian filmmakers and while it doesn’t do anything that you haven’t seen before, it does it so well that you don’t notice how familiar it actually is.

The story revolves around a group of young people who with the use of an embalmed hand (?) are able to enable spirits to temporarily possess them.

This is an aspect of the movie worth mentioning because possession apparently gives the possessed a buzz once they’re released, so being young people they literally turn it into a party trick.

Joss and Haley (Chris Alosio and Zoe Terakes, the instigators of the game) warn that possession can last no more than 90 seconds though they never spell out what happens if someone is possessed for longer.

Unfortunately, Mia (Sophie Wilde)’s mother recently died of suicide realizes that this could be an opportunity to speak to her one last time.

Though someone said that ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions…’ as Mia would soon come to realize.

This is where Talk to Me shifts into high gear and things get really real – and brutal – really, really fast.

Talk to Me is scary and at times amusing and never dull (though it does lose a bit of momentum when the narrative moves to Mia’s father though things pick up pretty quickly) and is one of the best horror movies released this year.