Night Talkers has a cool premise and an even cooler ending. The stories in between are hits and misses, but the ending—albeit predictable—is a game changer. We’re certainly going to dissect that in this article, and also touch on the three main stories of this little horror anthology, which is written and directed by Topher Chambers.
Spoilers Ahead
What is the movie about?
Ari Hall runs a widely popular late-night horror show—called ‘Night Talkers’—on the local radio station of Marshalltown. He mostly invites guests at the studio, who share their strange experiences, but for once, he has decided to tweak the format. It just so happens to be a night with a storm warning—this bit of setup doesn’t have any impact, though—when Hall asks his listeners to call and share their ghost stories. The phone starts ringing like crazy, and the first few callers are predictably sharing either made-up stories or movie plots. They obviously can’t fool someone like Ari. Fifteen minutes into this, we finally get into the proper stories.
Before going into the actual ones, let me just remind you of the story where a man saw some sort of a monster while he was dropping off his kid. Ari dismisses the story because of the man (conveniently) not taking a photo of whatever he saw. I have a theory here, though; I believe he did see a skinwalker. That’s a term Night Talkers introduces—it basically refers to vicious monsters who are walking in front of you looking like humans.
Survival gone wrong
Let us now get into the first story. Survival nerd Chris goes to the woods of Marshalltown to spend some alone time. But then he has the misfortune of being hunted by a skinwalker—in its monster form. That’s obviously a shock for him to deal with, as characters in Night Talkers are mostly regular people who have no idea about the supernatural. Anyway, despite almost managing to survive, Chris falls prey to the monster, although we don’t get to see much of his suffering. I believe this is one of the murders being blamed on bear attacks, even though there’s not that many bears in this part of the world. There’s a point in this story that hints at introducing a doppelganger, but it doesn’t go there ultimately. I feel that would have been great and gone very right with the overall eeriness of this segment.
Welcome to the murder house.
As a huge fan of American Horror Story, I couldn’t pass up on the chance to do this—I mean the subhead, but obviously it is also quite fitting. This segment, which is literally about a house that murders people, is not quite related to the main plot, but has to be the best one out of the three. The deal here is quite simple: we’ve got this group of people—John, Leo, Clint, Jenny, and Natalie—running a paranormal show. They’re about to take things a notch higher—by going live as they enter a haunted house. John is the smug leader who doesn’t actually believe in anything and immediately starts flirting with Sarah, who’s basically the caretaker of the house—not much is known about the character, other than the fact she’s a cool goth. Natalie, on the other hand, is a believer and actually takes the job seriously. The rest of them mostly don’t matter, but they all pretty much hate John—which is understandable, as the minute you meet the guy, you want him to die. Expectedly, things start getting weird right after they are inside the house. Their phones are suddenly out of charge because the house apparently drains battery sometimes, as explained by Sarah. The real freak show starts when John pulls out a Ouija board and practically summons the evil inside the house to show its true colors. Leo and Clint realize that they’re locked inside the house as they can’t open any door. Jenny, however, happens to be the first one to die, even after being outside—she went out before the Ouija board came out. The death is both shocking and gory—where a random piece of wood falls on her and one of her eyes is pierced by a sharp nail. Every other death was an inevitability after that, and they go down pretty much how you’d expect. Not showing John’s death is a downer for me, but the sound of the dude’s scream is quite satisfying. Natalie, of course, survives after figuring out that she needs to close down the Ouija board session. But she’s scarred for life after this, sadly. The caller who tells the story claims to have watched everything online, as it was always supposed to be on camera.
Carl versus Skinwalker
City planner Carl is the final caller, and he promises to tell a story where he himself has experienced everything—unlike the last two, one is heard from others and the other was seen through a computer. Anyway, Carl arrives in Marshalltown, anxious and excited for his new job. His boss Gary seems to be a nice old man. However, there’s something off about the whole thing. That becomes more evident when Carl goes to explore the woods and finds a dead body. Police arrive and conclude it was a bear attack. There have been similar deaths in the recent past, all of which have been pinned on the bears, even though no one has caught actual sight of them. Forensics Tammy also says the same, but later she reveals to Carl that she doesn’t believe it was a bear. That becomes quite clear when Carl, during another one of his solo explorations, sees a skinwalker—this one is more scary looking than the one Chris saw, with a more disfigured face and a pair of antlers. When Carl takes it up to Gary, the old man brushes it off and asks the city planner to focus on his work. Obviously, Gary turning out to be a skinwalker himself is a nice twist in the end, even though it was predictable.
And finally, guess who is a Skinwalker
In Night Talkers’ ending, when Ari asks Carl about the point of the whole story, he says it is for spreading awareness. Ari doesn’t seem to be too pleased with that, but he doesn’t react. In what should be considered the best and the final twist, Ari himself turns out to be a skinwalker. I’m pretty certain at least half of the population of Marshalltown are skinwalkers too, and they’re going to be mad at Carl after the show, just saying.
