Danny and Michael Philippou have seriously upped their game with Bring Her Back, a skin-crawling horror in which grief and trauma permeate every single frame. The duo’s breakout debut, Talk to Me, was visceral and energetic, it was scary but you also felt like they were having a bit of fun playing around in the genre. There’s no more goofing around this time. They are bringing the kind of deep-rooted creep factor that you won’t easily escape from after the credits have rolled.
This one is grim almost from the start, as legally blind Piper (Sora Wong, a real find) tries and fails to make friends with a cliquish group of girls at the bus stop. She remains upbeat even as her protective older bro Andy (Billy Barratt) comes to comfort her. It’s clear that he’s used to watching over her, and that she is used to him doing it. Unfortunately, this moment of sibling closeness is destroyed when they arrive home to find their father dead, face down in the running shower. Social Services comes swooping in and, before they’ve even had a moment to process what’s happened, attempts to split them up.
Instead, Andy and Piper are taken in by Laura, played with absolutely batshit reckless abandon by Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins. Laura’s seems nice enough, if a bit odd. But it’s hard to tell if she’s truly weird or just weird to a couple of kids who think all adults are weird. She cares for a disturbingly mute boy, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), and once had a blind daughter who died under tragic circumstances. She’s either the perfect caretaker to watch over these two, or the most imperfect choice that ever could’ve been made. Given that this is a horror movie, you can probably guess how it turns out.
Bring Her Back is effective not because it’s full of jump scares or grizzly acts of violence, although trust that it has plenty of both, it’s the emotional damage being inflicted by this monster of a woman who seems to be feeding on it. While it’s established a cultish, paranormal element that fuels Laura, she’s pretty horrible without any of it. The way she plays Piper against Andy, who has a troubled background that’s easy to exploit, is ghastly considering how much we know they need one another.
I would argue that Bring Her Back doesn’t need its most supernatural aspects. The true horrors are the most human, rooted in such overwhelming grief that it’s transformational. It’s to Hawkins’ credit that she manages to make such a vile woman even a little bit sympathetic, but we can see in her the amount of pain she’s in. Sometimes, Laura looks as if she doesn’t recognize the person she’s become, only to give in and do something much worse.
Leveling up to match Hawkins are Bring Her Back‘s youngest stars. Wong, a legally blind actress in real life, and Barrett deliver raw emotional performances that keep evolving throughout the film. Andy, a teenager thrust into the role of guardian to Piper, puts on a brave front as much to convince himself as his sister. That makes it so much more cruel as we see Laura chip away at him, revealing deep wells of insecurity and fear.
While certain subplots don’t work as well as others, Bring Her Back also does a great job of keeping one of its central mysteries surrounding Oliver’s true nature. Why is this cleanly shaven kid being locked away in rooms all by himself? Why is he dressed like a prison inmate? And why does he seems to have an insatiable hunger for…well, everything?
Cinematographer Aaron McLiskey and sound effects editors Lachlan Harris and Lee Yee do a fantastic job of altering certain visual and aural aspects to reflect the viewpoint of someone with impaired vision. This is really effective in helping to establish the atmosphere of dread that Bring Her Back pulls you into.
Bring Her Back is a very different kind of movie than Talk to Me, which was such an enjoyable genre favorite that it’s getting a sequel. There won’t be any sequels for this. It’s just so dark, even in the end, that you’ll need to cheer yourself up with something happy when it’s over. Go out and get some ice cream. Go pet some kittens. But when that’s over, chances are your thoughts will drift back to Bring Her Back and the maternalistic monstrosity that Hawkins and the Philippou Brothers have created.
A24 releases Bring Her Back in theaters on May 30th.
