By C. Rommial Butler
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First off, let me say that Talk to Me was an immensely enjoyable film. I urge you to watch this 2023 Australian affair if you haven’t already, and especially before you read the following essay, as it will contain spoilers!
This is one of those cursed object stories. It calls to mind the classic tale of The Monkey’s Paw. The original story was written by W.W. Jacobs and published in 1902, but it went on to inspire many film and television adaptations.
In Jacobs’ story, the paw was imbued by a fakir with the power to grant three wishes, but the price of each wish was some horrible ulterior consequence.
It is one of the best moral tales exemplifying the old maxim: be careful what you wish for... you just might get it.
In Talk to Me we encounter a severed hand, embalmed and cast forever in a handshake pose, with occult sigils written all over it.
A candle is lit, a daring and usually intoxicated teenager is belted to a chair before the hand, which is propped on a table. They grab the hand and say “Talk to me”.
A spirit of the damned—the ghost of someone who died horribly—appears before the one holding the hand!
Then the querent says “I let you in” and the spirit enters them, resulting in some gross and disturbing antics. But all in good fun as the on-lookers cheer and record it with their smartphones.
One should not remain in that state for longer than ninety seconds, the legend goes, or the spirit may not leave. Open the door by lighting the candle. Close the door by taking the hand away from the querent and blowing out the candle.
I don’t think I have to tell you where this is going.
Stupid teenagers plus supernatural mumbo jumbo equals malicious misadventure every time.
Of course, circumstances arise wherein someone has the hand too long and they forget to close the door and the spirits stick around and people get hurt and die and the demons mess with their heads and trick them into killing their own loved ones and in the end the main protagonist, Mia, dies and she becomes one of the damned spirits who shows up when, lo and behold, some more stupid teenagers use the death hand as a party favor.
Mia describes her first possession experience as exhilarating. Everyone who does it, in the aftermath, admits that it was like no high they ever experienced, and between that and the rip-roaring good time they have observing each other in a state of possession, it becomes a sort of addiction.
At one point the older teens allow a younger teen, Riley, to do it against his older sister’s wishes. This is where it all goes horribly wrong. Riley speaks as if possessed by Mia’s dead mother, and she keeps him in the possession state beyond the forewarned ninety seconds.
Then he bashes his head and face on every available surface in the room until he finally ends up in the hospital, tormented by malignant spirits and unable to stop harming himself.
This seems to me an obvious allegory to drug culture and drug addiction; for enabling through peer pressure. There is here, perhaps, a fantastic example of what Benjamin Franklin meant when he said:
“Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure when really he is selling himself to it.”
This is a difficult topic for me. There is a long list of names, of people who are no longer with us because they could not stop going back to the well. Some folks I personally knew and loved were on that list. I almost was too.
I am never going to support the idea of drug prohibition—that putting people in a prison of the State’s device will free them from the prison of their own. I advocate for the notion that if we are going to spend tax dollars on the problem, we should seek to help and not punish.
I know that addiction is a disease, but that not all addictions are the same. I also know that not everyone who does drugs gets addicted, and not everyone who is addicted is necessarily on drugs; and that’s the question we can explore through the lens of Talk to Me and The Monkey’s Paw.
Addiction is a pattern of behavior that indicates an internal problem, something which the addict feels the need to escape. Everyone has their particular poison and reasons.
I am not one to judge another’s reasons for chasing their fix. I knew what my reasons were. The important thing is to find hope, any incentive to search for solutions to the problem rather than mere escape.
Some addictions are obviously less harmful than others. For instance, an addiction to gambling is not the same as an addiction to crystal meth. Both will drain your money, and waste your time, but meth destroys your body and mind a hell of a lot faster.
(Pro Tip: NEVER DO METH.)
The question that tales like Talk to Me beg is: why do we encourage each other to mutual destruction? Why encourage the next person to say “I let you in”?
We might reference my article on heckle-worthy horror, where I discuss the joy of sharing any experience, even a bad one.
But, well… I mean this in the nicest possible way, and I even mean to turn it around to be something positive, so don’t judge too quickly.
Nobody likes to get high alone.
When we have experiences that feel good, we want to share the good experiences too. That is the positive part!
When we haven’t had enough experience, as in the case of the stupid teenager that we all were at one point, we are far more vulnerable to peer pressure and addiction in a society where we are also woefully undereducated about the actual effects of the stimuli to which we are habitually subjected, and by which we are chronically tempted.
This is a problem as old as human culture. The moral of the tale of the monkey’s paw, that we should be careful what we wish for, still resonates today, not just through clever films like Talk to Me, but right before us in our everyday lives.
Sometimes it stares back at us from the mirror.
If you are going through any trouble in your life, there are people to whom you can turn, but you must know you will not find them where you are at, doing the things you’re doing.
When someone says: this thing is cursed, don’t mess with it, and then you watch as more and more people ruin themselves with it… don’t do it! Don’t encourage others to do it!
This applies to many things, not just addiction.
We only ever have the evidence of our senses, and this is all the more reason to take the time, and to teach our children to take the time, to think about what we are perceiving.
Our instincts can serve us well as regards our basic survival needs, but it is plain to see that our ancestors were not wired to cope with the potency of laboratory grade drugs nor, for that matter, many of the pitfalls of modern technology.
Throughout Talk to Me, Mia’s stepmom, who is also Riley’s mom, only seems to speak to them when she’s telling them what to do or accusing them of something.
Mia’s biological father withholds information from Mia about her mother’s death, and they have a stunted relationship, like they communicate through a wall.
Is that why the kids talk to the spirits instead? Is that what leads Mia to prefer the counsel of the dead posing as her mother rather than the counsel of her living father?
I could go on drawing out more of the allegory, but you’re a wise one, dear reader, and I know I don’t have to encourage you to think for yourself. You’re welcome to share your thoughts too, here at the horror to culture site, or in the Horror to Culture facebook group. You can also send me a message on my artist page.
If you need help, there are many resources, but the best ones will be those people you know you can trust. There’s someone somewhere that loves you. Reach out to them.
Better to take the helping hand offered by the living than seek the dead hand of debauchery.
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C. Rommial Butler is a writer, musician and philosopher from Indianapolis, IN. His works can be found online through multiple streaming services and booksellers. More original articles can be found HERE.
