What actually happens
Rules for the embalmed hand, in order of how often they are ignored
The movie opens at a party in Adelaide, where Cole is looking for his brother Duckett. Cole finds him and tries to bring him home, and Duckett responds by stabbing Cole and then himself. Some time later, 17-year-old Mia is having a hard time on the day marking a year since her mother, Rhea, died of an accidental sleeping pill overdose. She and her father, Max, are distant. Mia sneaks out with Jade, her best friend, and Riley, Jade's younger brother, to go to a gathering at Hayley and Joss's. The star of the evening is a severed, embalmed hand. You hold it, light a candle and say "Talk to me," which summons the spirit of a dead person. Say "I let you in" and the spirit possesses you. Somebody has to pull the hand away and blow out the candle within 90 seconds, or the spirit may bind itself to you. Mia goes first, is taken over by a spirit that stares at Riley, and the group runs slightly over the time limit.
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Riley gets 50 seconds
Mia tells Riley the experience felt euphoric. The next night she is at Jade's house with Hayley, Joss and Jade's boyfriend, Daniel, and every one of them takes several turns except Riley and his friend James, who sit out. Jade refuses to let Riley join in, but when she leaves the room, Riley insists, and Mia lets him go for 50 seconds. This is the scene people dread, and it comes in the middle of the movie. Riley appears to be possessed by Rhea, who tries to make peace with Mia, and Mia stops the others from ending it because she wants to keep talking to her mother. Other spirits take over Riley and make him smash his head against the table and the walls in a suicide attempt. He is hospitalized in critical condition.
Mia and the hand, still together
Mia sees visions of her mother without using the hand, and Jade and her mother Sue blame her and shut her out. She secretly kept the hand and uses it again, and her mother insists her death was an accident and that Mia has to help Riley. Daniel stays at her house for a night, wakes up to find Mia in a trance, sucking on his feet, and he leaves. The friends find Cole, who tells them a living body expels invading spirits over time. Mia uses the hand to reach Riley in the hospital and sees him tortured in a hellish place. Max then reads Rhea's suicide letter aloud, admitting he hid the truth. The spirit of Rhea claims Max is lying, Mia hallucinates that he is attacking her and stabs him by accident, and Rhea says Riley must die to be free. Mia takes Riley out of the hospital in a wheelchair toward a busy highway, and Jade sees her. Rhea tells her to push him into traffic, but at the line "We'll have him forever," Mia lets the wheelchair go. Jade runs at her, and a car hits Mia head-on.
Mia gets the party seat
Mia stands up in the road and nobody notices her. She suddenly finds herself in a hospital hallway, where Riley has fully recovered and is chatting with Jade and Sue as Max rides away in an elevator. She gets no glance or word from anyone, a mirror shows nothing of her, and her body is still disfigured from the accident. Darkness closes in. Far away she sees a hand held over a candle, grabs it and is pulled to a party in Greece. The partygoer clutching the hand is egged on to talk and says to her "I let you in." The movie ends as Mia takes over the partygoer.
The ending, explained
Mia is dead and trapped on the spirit side, unseen and unheard, with her injuries intact. Riley has fully recovered, and Jade, Sue and Max are alive and standing in the hospital without her. Max had been stabbed by Mia during the hallucination but is shown leaving in an elevator. At the very end, Mia answers a summons at a party in Greece, hears a stranger say "I let you in" and takes over that person's body, becoming one of the spirits she once talked to.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, though he is in the room for a séance.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Talk to Me scary?
Yes, Talk to Me is a 7 out of 10. It has jump scares, a lot of gore and heavy scenes about grief and self-harm, and the dread lasts a few days.
How does Talk to Me end?
Mia is hit by a car and finds herself unseen on the spirit side, while Riley recovers. She is then summoned to a party in Greece and possesses the person holding the hand.
Does the dog die in Talk to Me?
No dog dies in Talk to Me. The pet dog is in the room during one of the séances and is not hurt. A kangaroo is shown suffering, which is upsetting.
Is there a post-credits scene in Talk to Me?
No. Talk to Me has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
What are the rules of the hand in Talk to Me?
In Talk to Me, you hold the embalmed hand, say "Talk to me" and then "I let you in." Someone has to pull the hand away and blow out the candle before 90 seconds, or the spirit can bind itself to the person.
