They Sold Porn Star Bathwater and Just Made the Year’s Scariest Movie
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There have been quite a few horror movies of late that center around influencers and YouTubers, and, with some exceptions, they mostly suck. Maybe it’s because the protagonist is always yelling in that trademark “YouTube” voice. Maybe it’s that the found footage oeuvre could use a serious overhaul. Or maybe it comes down to the filmmakers not really understanding YouTubers. So what happens when those creators take a crack at the genre? If you’re Danny and Michael Philippou, you make the scariest movie of the year.
Twin brothers Danny and Michael are the brains behind RackaRacka, an Australian YouTube channel where their 6.74 million subscribers tune in to watch Michael dress up as a seriously demented Ronald McDonald, Danny attempt to hawk his favorite porn star’s bathwater (as a gag), and the brothers tangle with the cops after attempting to drive a car underwater. Given all that, you may be expecting similar fare when it comes to their debut horror movie, Talk to Me, out July 27 via A24. However, instead of plug-and-playing their YouTube success into a scary movie, they go one step further. The film explores the depravity of viral culture, following a group of friends as they acquire an embalmed hand that allows them to communicate with the other side. The attendant shocks and scares make perfect fodder for the friends’ social channels — until, that is, the brother of protagonist Mia’s (Sophie Wilde) best friend bashes his head in after being possessed by Mia’s mother.
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The twins spoke with Rolling Stone about going from YouTube to A24, what really scares them, and that one time Michael accidentally sent a threatening text to the producer of The Babadook.
How long have you wanted to be filmmakers?
Danny Philippou: It’s been the dream since we were nine. I was always obsessed with R.L. Stine book covers and all that sort of stuff. But the first time we started making films, we had a thing called the Eagle Flamingo, which was my sister’s doll that she had in her room. And we used to grab it and pretend it was Chucky, and we’d kill our friends.
What was the genesis of RackaRacka?
Michael Philippou: We never went to into YouTube to become YouTubers. We were always just making things, and Danny was creating these fake fails that he was putting on Facebook: putting a knife in a toaster and blowing up, or taking a piss out of some trend and making it go wrong.
Danny: Yeah, it was all fake, staged. Fake fails. They were going really viral. And now we’re ending up on TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brien. But no one knew who was making them. So, a friend of ours who had a YouTube channel said, “You guys should put them on YouTube, so people know where they’re coming from.” So we just made a YouTube channel, because we always want to be creating. I think we’re just naturally drawn to violence, film violence, and comedy. Our style for our filmmaking is just something that we’ve created over the years. It gained momentum quickly. So, we were all just like, “What if we actually put an effort into this?”
So, Danny, you said you co-wrote the script with Bill Hinzman. What was that process like? Where did that idea come from?
Danny: There was an experience with these neighbors that we watched grow up — these three boys. One of them was experimenting with drugs for the first time and he was having a negative reaction to the drug he’d taken. And he was on the floor. He was convulsing. And all the kids that he was with weren’t helping him. They were just filming him and laughing at him.
I remember seeing that footage and it really bothering me. And then, Daley Pearson, who is a producer on Bluey, sent me a short film, which is about these kids that are having fun with demonic possession. And I was really connected to that premise; it felt modern to me. It felt like how kids would react to possession these days. So I wrote characters that I connected with, made it a bit more dark as opposed to a comedy, and then once I got started writing, I couldn’t stop.
Tell me a little bit about the challenges of moving from short form on YouTube to a feature film.
Danny: We were lucky enough that we had worked on film sets previous to the YouTube stuff. So we knew the world and what it looked like and how it worked. But in terms of the film structure and story and things like that, we knew that we needed to have a strong script.
I saw you worked on The Babadook.
Danny: I was volunteering for free on all these movies because no one will turn away a free pair of hands. I just wanted to be on set, getting experience, but one of the producers said, “You can’t just keep doing everything for free.” And I was like, “I just want to be here,” and then she said, her name was Julie Byrne, she said, “Next film I work on, I’ll get you paid. A paid gig on it.” And that was The Babadook. I think I was 19.
Any behind-the-scenes stories?
Danny: Michael was driving me to set and we got told off because Michael shouldn’t be driving me around; he’s driving around a main actor. But I had no way to get there, so I would hide in the boot of the car. And then Michael sent me a text, just saying, “Keep your head down or I’m going to slaughter you.” But instead of sending it to me, he accidentally sent it to the producer of the movie.
Michael: I didn’t say “slaughter you,” I said, “Keep your head down or I’ll fucking butcher you.” Or something like that. I sent that to the producer.
Danny: There was one other story that I can say. There was some important producer or something coming down and it was a really important pickup. And I remember getting told, “Make sure you’re on time. It’s 5 a.m. You have to be there at this address. Don’t be late. It’s a very important person.” I said, “Oh, no problem, no problem.”
And then, the next morning I woke up early and I was ready to go and then realized that I left the address in the office. And I had to drive to the studios to try to get it, but no one was awake. And then I looked up to a balcony that lead into the production office. And I scaled up the side of the building and then there was a door that looked like it was open. I start pulling it, and I broke the latch and opened the door. The alarm, the whole building went off, “Whew, whew, whew!” And I ran and grabbed the address, and I jumped off the balcony. But I made it on time and picked her up.
That’s incredible! So what draws you guys to horror?
Danny: It was the first genre that we fell in love with as kids. Our mom was always very specific about what we could watch and the ratings that we were allowed to watch, and then our dad was a bit more rogue and would let us watch what we wanted. So when we were 10 and 11, we got to experience horror films in the cinema and there was just something about safely being terrified that we just—
Michael: —I didn’t feel safe. I ran out at Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I still haven’t watched it to this day.
I see a million horror movies now about influencers and YouTubers — what do you think of those movies?
Danny: I think there’s starting to be more of them because it’s just part of the culture now. Social media and those platforms run the world, so naturally, I think it’s going to be incorporated more into films. When we made Talk to Me, it wasn’t about, “Oh let’s comment on social media.” But I think that sometimes, when a writer is trying to portray an influencer, there’s something that’s a bit disconnected. And sometimes it feels like they’re not understanding the culture or something.
I have to ask how you guys did the kangaroo scene — where Mia and her friend’s brother, Riley, come across a dying kangaroo on the road and Riley begs Mia to put it out of its misery. As somebody who gets very upset when animals die, it’s haunting.
Michael: It was a puppet kangaroo on the road. But there’s a shot of it in the hospital [when Riley is in the hospital after things go wrong with the hand], and that was a real kangaroo. That’s the longest shoot that we did.
Danny: First AD scheduled half an hour for the kangaroo in the hospital. Just one shot, hopping. And it was so hard because it kept hopping the other way, or into the room, or not moving at all, or not far enough. It was hilarious. There was one shot of the kangaroo and it was like a nightmare.
Michael: There was a dog, Bridgette, which we love [in the movie]. That dog is so loud. You couldn’t use a lot of the audio because it’s like, “Hah, hah, hah, hah.” That’s it breathing normally, so it just went over all the dialogue.
Danny: And we didn’t want to kill a dog in our film.
Yeah, you should have heard the theater that I was in. They were just so worried about the dog. My friend was with me, and he’s like, “If that dog dies, I’m leaving.”
Danny: Yeah, we would never hurt a dog. There was a casting process for Bridgette. We just connected with her straight away. She had this beautiful cute little pink bow tie. We let her keep that. But she had her own trailer and she was very rude to the crew.
What are you guys scared of?
Danny: Mental illness and depression. That’s a really depressing answer, I’m sorry. I was tapping into that a little bit with the film. Everything that’s in the film is very personal, and we were trying to express things that were scaring me at the time of writing. And so, yeah, I find that really horrifying.
Michael: Mine is not being accepted.
Speaking of, how is it being part of the A24 family now? Were you guys fans of their films?
Michael: It was the joke always on set. We would do edits and when we debate editing, we’d be like, “It’s not very A24 of you to be lingering on this shot like this.” We didn’t think it would be actually possible to work with A24. They’re so prestigious and we’re just not that. We were at an A24 party, and there were all these amazing directors and actors and staff, and we’re like, “We should not be in this room.”
So one thing I really appreciated is that you didn’t do a backstory for where the hand came from. Was that a choice?
Danny: Man, it was the biggest choice. Our mythology bible is so thick. The hand, the history of it all, the demons that the kids connected with, the lore of the hand, who it belonged to, every person that’s ever owned it. We have this really thick bible, but I knew that we wanted the kids to be out of their depth and not understand what it was that they’re messing with. And that was a big thing for us. We didn’t have the library scene [where the kids are searching microfiche].
Or the abandoned mental hospital where there are files that explain everything?
Michael: Yeah, exactly! It’s when they go on Google that I always cringe.
Would you try the hand if given a chance?
Michael: One hundred percent. I’d find a group of friends I was really, really close with and we would not film it, but I don’t think I’d be able to resist.
Danny: I’d do a bit of an audition process maybe and decide which one. If it’s a scary-looking person, next.
So what are guys working on now?
Danny: Now we’ve got another horror film that we’ve finished called Bring Her Back. And I’d love to do a sequel to Talk to Me if they ever gave me the opportunity to do that project. And then, right now, we’re directing Street Fighter as well. We love the game and we’ve got a very unique way of shooting action. The way that we really hone that craft on YouTube, I think that we could put together something no one has ever seen before.
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