Talk To Me's Directors Had A Sleepover With Haunted Dolls In The Conjuring House

10 years after terrifying the world with its clapping games and haunted dolls, "The Conjuring" has given rise to an entire shared universe that's still chugging along to this day. But more than lining the pockets of studio executives with lots and lots of dollars, the James Wan-directed scare-fest has had an important impact on the horror genre creatively. Indeed, as much as "The Conjuring" (along with the Wan-helmed "Insidious") served to evolve the art of the jump scare, its biggest contribution was arguably bringing horror further into the mainstream. In doing so, it helped open the floodgates for a new and more diverse group of storytellers to come in and use the genre to explore the issues they find personally meaningful.

Among 2023's most promising up-and-comers in the horror filmmaking world are Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, who are on the verge of releasing their first-ever feature film, "Talk to Me." As was also the case earlier this year with "Skinamarink" writer/director Kyle Edward Ball, the Philippou siblings already had a strong presence online (courtesy of the popular horror-comedy shorts posted to the duo's YouTube channel RackaRacka) prior to trying their hand at a full-blown feature. This, in turn, makes the brothers part of the same generation aiming to further reinvent and innovate the conventions of the horror genre, much like Wan did back in 2013 (his second time doing so after "Saw," no less).

In fact, it turns out that Wan's original "Conjuring" film — or, more specifically, the real-life farmhouse that inspired its story — played a very literal role in the Philippou brothers' creative process as they prepared to make "Talk to Me."

In an interview from the latest issue of SFX Magazine, Danny and Michael Philippou revealed they spent the night in the Perron family home in Rhode Island (as was famously featured in "The Conjuring") as a way of psyching themselves up to tackle "Talk to Me." But spending the night in a supposedly haunted house wasn't enough. No, the brothers brought a bunch of supposedly haunted dolls with them. Undoubtedly, James Wan could've given them some pointers in that department.

"We also got haunted dolls from all over the world and brought them to the house and did a sleepover," said Michael Philippou. "If you bring haunted dolls to the world's most haunted house surely something haunted happens!" Danny Philippou added, "We chase it so much. Every country that we go to, we always try to stay in the most haunted location!"

Apparently, their shenanigans were effective. "Talk to Me," which centers on a group of friends who learn how to conjure spirits by using the severed, embalmed hand of a psychic (no way that could end badly, nope), premiered to rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Chris Evangelista, who reviewed "Talk to Me" for /Film, even went so far as to declare it "a gross, funny, creepy saga that often feels like Australia's answer to Sam Raimi's 'The Evil Dead.'" 

If nothing else, spending all that time with frightening dolls in eerie places got the Philippou brothers thinking outside the box when it came to their film. "We were wondering what the [haunted] object could be," Michael Philippou explained. "And we didn't want it to be things that have been done before. The film was all about connections — real and false. The hand is like a physical representation of the themes of the film."

"Talk to Me" attacks theaters on July 28, 2023.