The embalmed, ceramic-covered hand in Talk To Me checks a lot of boxes as a standout horror movie prop. It’s super creepy in appearance, and within the film, it comes packaged with both a set of strict, ominous instructions and mysterious origins. It’s a creative and scary invention … and it’s a bit spooky that the filmmakers don’t have tabs on all of the hands that were created for the production.
As featured in the video above, I asked co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou about the whereabouts of the hand earlier this month during the pre-release virtual press day for Talk To Me, and I was surprised by their answer in multiple respects. For starters, they themselves only recently learned that three of the original six hands were broken/destroyed during production (though they don’t recall that happening). The other disquieting revelation is that while they have a hand, and star Sophie Wilde has a hand, the third is “in the abyss somewhere.” In their words,
Danny Philippou: There were six, but like, we only found this out yesterday while talking to Sam.
Michael Philippou: Yeah, there's only three remaining.
Danny Philippou: There's only three. So there was six, but like three of them got destroyed or like got broken?
Michael Philippou: We don't know where they are. They said they got damaged, but there was no time on set they got damaged... but was afraid to touch them. But there was six and now there's three. So we've got one, Sophie [Wilde]'s got one and there's one in the abyss somewhere. I don't know. Three left.
Based on the brothers’ comments, as many as four hands from the Talk To Me set may be out in the world – and while I know that they aren’t really embalmed appendages with supernatural powers, I would be unnerved if I went to a party and saw one sitting on a living room table.
In addition to running down the present whereabouts of the props, the filmmakers also spoke a bit about the process that went into the hand’s creation. Finding a proper positioning/angle for it to be in required a bit of trial and error, and Danny Philippou revealed whose hand it is modeled after: production designer Bethany Ryan. Said the filmmakers,
Michael Philippou: And then the hand, it took a lot to find the just the pose. We had do so many different sculpts of the shape of the hand. It was really hard to find, actually. 'Cause originally it was sitting like this [holds hand vertically], but that didn't work. It was like finding a big process.
Danny Philippou: Shout out to Bethany Ryan, our production designer. She molded her own hand, and that ended up being the one.
Applause is due all around, as the collaborative effort creating the hand has resulted in a standout new piece of horror iconography.
Talk To Me, starring Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto, and Joe Bird, is now playing in theaters across the country, and it is successfully leaving audiences shaking. It’s not just among the best A24 horror movies (a high bar to reach), but one of the best films of 2023 so far (and I explain why in my CinemaBlend review). If you haven’t already, catch it on the big screen, and then head back here for our examination of the haunting ending.
