Talk To Me: How Two YouTubers Made The Scariest Movie Of The Year
Some of the biggest films from A24 have been horror titles like "Midsommar," "It Comes at Night," and "Hereditary." With the upcoming release of "Talk To Me," a supernatural horror thriller by YouTubers Michael and Danny Philippou, that trend will continue. The movie follows Mia (Sophie Wilde) and how she and her friends must fight paranormal forces after mistakenly unleashing the spirits through an embalmed hand.
The filmmakers stayed true to the artistic impulses that allowed them to fashion one of 2023's scariest features. How they made the movie in the first place is an example of careful planning and trial and error. In an interview with Collider, Danny Philippou stated, "The best first step is to find good producers, and Causeway was our first step. We could not believe they responded."
The director then shared how the production company told them there are better methods for finding producers than pitching a screenplay. But for the duo that runs the RackaRacka horror comedy YouTube channel, maintaining their creative integrity also helped fashion the feature's frightening tone.
Michael & Danny Philippou declined an enormous budget to have creative control over the film
In the spirit of Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" and other debut horror features, "Talk To Me" is a classic example of indie horror filmmaking done well. YouTube stars Michael and Danny Philippou followed a similar trajectory for their debut feature by forgoing massive funding for the sake of artistic control over their project.
Danny Philippou told Collider, "We were starting to develop it with them and they were trying to sort of steer it towards a more conventional route where there was a lot of exploration with our main horror item, our main horror prop, and I just wanted the kids and the characters to be out of their depths." Michael Philippou followed this statement by highlighting how creative control is most important to them. Causeway understood this in ways that a larger studio likely would not have.
Danny also revealed how the production company would give the cast and crew ample rehearsal time to frame the scenes according to the brothers' vision. This detail also allowed the actors to completely express a full range of reactions and emotions to build a sequence in the most frightful context.
Audiences can discover how their perseverance paid off when "Talk To Me" hits theaters on July 28.