★★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
🩸🩸🩸🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸for some gnarly gore, eye gouging, and repeated head wounds.
Each and every year there’s THAT horror film that shakes things up. Hits the festival circuit and creates tidal wave-sized buzz. Sometimes it’s deserved and sometimes it’s not. In the case of 2023’s festival darling Talk to Me, the buzz is profoundly deserved.
SXSW made its return to live audiences in Austin in March of 2022, and The Scariest Things was present for the event. Liz Williams took in as much as she could at the festival, and the rest of TST's staff followed by streaming for one of the world's great film festivals.