Talk to Me(2022)

Pooper:
Mia ends up killing herself rather than killing Riley. She is then shown as a ghost, participating with a new group of people playing the possession game.

Long Ending:
The film begins in Australia where a teenager named Cole is trying to calm Duckett, his brother. Duckett moans that he keeps seeing dead people. Duckett then stabs Cole before killing himself.

Mia (Sophie Wild) is in a depression due to her mother having recently died by suicide. She has distanced herself from her dad and spends as much time as she can with her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and Jade’s younger brother Riley (Joe Bird). Mia is kind-hearted but meek, unable to kill a kangaroo she finds on the side of the road that has been fatally struck by a car and is in pain. That night, Jade convinces Mia to go with her to a party with her new boyfriend Daniel (Otis Dhanji). Riley forces his way into going too.

Mia isn’t well liked by the other kids, and also is sad that Daniel is with Jade (since she clearly has a crush on him). Mia therefore quickly volunteers when two of the other kids offer to play a “possession” game, whose participants have been going viral on social media. The teens take out the severed hand of a dead medium that has been encased in ceramic. The player (in this case Mia) grabs the hand and says “Talk to Me.” When saying that, a ghost is conjured. The player then says “I let you in” and the ghost possesses them (as the others record the possession on their phones). The ghosts are only allowed to possess the player for 90 seconds so that they don’t gain too much control over the player’s body. To end the possession, the others have to take the hand out of the player’s grip and blow out a candle. Mia is possessed by an old watery ghost, and the ghost seems to take a particular liking to Riley. The teens have trouble getting the hand out of Mia’s grip, so the possession lasts longer than 90 seconds. Nonetheless, Mia feels exhilarated by the experience.

Jade and Mia convince the teens with the hand to throw another party at Jade’s house. Everyone takes turns being possessed, with comic results (including a possessed Daniel making out with Jade’s dog). Riley asks to play, and Mia agrees over Jade’s objection. To Mia’s shock, Riley seemingly becomes possessed by the spirit of Mia’s recently deceased mother. Desperate to talk to her parent, Mia doesn’t allow the others to break off the possession. Well after 90 seconds pass, Riley starts screaming and banging his head against the wall and the corner of a table. The teens finally wrest control of the hand from Riley’s grip (but forget to blow out the candle) and the young boy is taken to the intensive care unit of the hospital. Both Jade and Sue (Miranda Otto) – Jade and Riley’s mother – tell Mia she is not welcome to be with them at the hospital. A clearly still possessed Riley continually self-harms whenever he’s brought out of a medically-induced coma.

Mia begins seeing ghosts all the time, including the apparent ghost of her mother (if it is her mother then she’s gone evil, but it is implied that the ghost that possessed Jade at the first party is pretending to be her mother to manipulate evets). Her “mother’s” ghost says that Riley’s spirit is trapped and in need of help. Mia contacts the teens that have the hand, and they help her find Cole (who survived being stabbed). It turns out the teens took the hand from Duckett, and that Duckett suffered from the same issues Mia is now experiencing before killing himself. Cole says that even though Riley may still be possessed, no ghost can permanently possess a body. He tells the teens to let things run the course and the ghost will eventually be forced from Riley’s body. However, Mia’s “mother” later tells Mia that Cole is incorrect and that Riley will be trapped in the spirit realm forever unless she does something. Unsure what to do, Mia summons another ghost that shows her a vision of Riley being brutally tortured in the spirit realm. Now believing her “mother,” she asks her what to do. Mia’s “mother” says that the only way to save Riley is to kill him.

When Mia goes to the hospital, she bumps into Sue. Sue embraces Mia and apologizes for her mean comments earlier and says Mia is a part of her family. Sue then lets Mia go into the hospital room to visit Riley alone. Mia tries to stab him, but can’t bring herself to do it (echoing her earlier decision not to kill the wounded kangaroo). Instead, she sneaks Riley out of the hospital in a wheelchair and prepares to push him into oncoming traffic. Mia’s “mother” whispers into Mia’s ear, encouraging her to do it. Instead, Mia jumps into the oncoming traffic and is hit by a car.

Mia awakens in the road and walks to the hospital. There, she sees her father recovered from his stabbing (Mia’s “mother” earlier tricked Mia into stabbing him). She also sees Riley has recovered and is no longer possessed (suggesting Cole’s claims were right). All the lights then begin turning off until Mia is trapped in total darkness. She then sees candlelight and a hand reaching towards her. Mia grasps the hand and suddenly finds herself in a room surrounded by teens she doesn’t know. Mia then sees that these teens have the hand and are playing the possession game…. and Mia is the ghost they’ve summoned (having died when struck by the car). The player looks at Mia and then says to her, “I let you in.”