They Talk (2021) Review

They Talk (2021) Review

Sound engineer Alex accidentally records sinister voices while shooting a documentary. The voices do not sound human, and they appear to be trying to warn him about someone, or something. His search for their meaning will bring back mysterious people and events from his past. A threatening, black, and gloomy wave starts to haunt him.

Written by Vinicio Canton, Stefano Ceccarelli and Chiara Barbo, and directed by Giorgio Bruno, THEY TALK is a handsomely mounted but hideously confused Italian horror film that ends up as a victim to its own script. It also doesn’t help that the film’s performances are over dramatic, with characters SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF THEIR VOICES for no real reason. Their emotions are rarely in check, constantly bubbling over into histrionics. It becomes very wearing, very quickly.

The brief scenes with the children are THEY TALK’s best, making the most of the gothic location and promising more than the finished film delivers. The camerawork, score, and production design also all hit the right note, but are sadly let down by a muddle of a script that never really knows where to go next. It’s almost like they made it up as they went along – Alex hears voices, and that’s it and for 90 minutes he goes on and on and on about it to anyone and everyone. I never fully understood why.

With a synopsis that shares DNA with the outstanding Brian DePalma film BLOW OUT and Steve Soderbergh’s recent triumph KIMI, you could be expecting something of a similar high standard. Hampered by dodgy dialogue, an incoherence script, and a floundering international cast, who look just as being as confused as I was, THEY TALK is a baffling befuddlement on many levels and without the doubt the most confusing flick I am have ever had to sit through.

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