Talk to Me (2023)

I’m a big fan of Australian horror. From Lake Mungo and The Babadook to Relic, Talk to Me, and Bring Her Back, Australia’s take on the genre has never disappointed me. The Australian filmmakers always bring something new and distinctively their own to the horror landscape. After watching Leviticus, that impressive streak clearly continues.

Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus is a beautiful, poignant, enraging, gut-wrenching, and heartbreaking film about the trauma and harm conversion therapy inflicts on young queer people. Even though its classification as horror holds, the emotional bond between the two main characters, Naim and Ryan, elevates the story into a realistic romantic drama on par with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

When it comes the horror genre, I am VERY hard to please or impress, much less scare. Coming from a current mindset of appreciation for chilling, unsettling, tension-inducing efforts such as "Hereditary", "The Conjuring" (ONLY the first one to date, mind you), "Lights Out", "The Babadook", "Midsommar", "Talk To Me", "Oddity", "Bring Her Back", and the like, this Summer sequel offered low expectations for me other than to end up providing what I more so anticipated...a good laugh.