Bring Her Back

While grieving the sudden death of their father, step-siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wang) are placed in the care of eccentrically cheery foster mother Laura (Sally Hawkins). However, VHS snuff films, occult imagery, and a mute child in Laura's care (Jonah Wren Phillips) lead to darker truths and a manipulative captivity for our young protagonists.

The Philippou Brothers deliver another knockout horror with family trauma (and double the gore). After raising eyebrows with their YouTube horror shorts, Danny and Michael Philippou etched their mark in modern horror with their knockout 2023 debut Talk to Me. With their sophomore effort, Bring Her Back, the Australian brothers trade the dark wit and playfulness of their first feature for a more atmospheric, slow-burning sense of dread. Cut from the same cloth as occult family horrors like Hereditary and Sinister, Bring Her Back balances its foster family plot with blurry found footage mythology that gives way to a larger conspiracy. But even with these familiar genre elements and predictable grief tropes, Bring Her Back attacks you like a sudden blow to your head that keeps ringing for the remainder of its blood-soaked premise.

Sally Hawkins is at her toe-curling best as the vilest mother in modern horror. As a dysfunctional family drama, Bring Her Back works on many levels, thanks to Sally Hawkins as Laura, a toe-curling personification of sheer evil. The Shape of Water and Paddington star sheds her usual feel-good charm in favour of something viler and anxiety-inducing. The young newcomers are also terrific, with Billy Barratt convincingly carrying some relatable elder sibling pressure along with the muted anger of being constantly gaslit by Laura at the drop of a hat. As his younger, visually impaired sister, Piper, Wang is also well-cast, with the premise thankfully not exploiting her disability for blatant shock value. But a true revelation in this ensemble is 12-year-old Jonah Wren Phillips as Oliver, another of Laura's adoptees who hardly speaks a word, but conveys deep-buried trauma and pent-up rage in his cold stares. But while Oliver's silent sorrow makes for Bring Her Back's most hard-hitting moments, the physical brutalities subjected to this pre-teen character are what drive us to the film's slightly-iffy moments.

Extreme teeth-bleeding gore gives way to a polarising experience. For all its nail-biting tension and tender exploration of bereavement, the final product leads to mixed results when it amps up the gore. Bring Her Back doesn't hold back with extreme close-ups of bodily harm, be it Oliver gnawing his teeth into furniture or slamming his shaved head onto a bedroom window. The relentless brutality doesn't make for an easy watch, challenging seasoned horror veterans and squeamish genre newbies alike. But when the film leans dangerously close to splatter territory, one wonders if the Philippous want to delve into a deranged foster mother's psyche or simply test their audience's tolerance for blood. Bring Her Back's emotional core fortunately elevates it above torture porn territory, even when the eye-flinching moments become a little too self-indulgent. Still, for all its extremes, this psychological horror-cum-dysfunctional family drama proves the Philippous can make their viewers gasp in shock, close their eyes in fear, and feel very, very glum. Love it or hate it, this sibling duo has crafted something that leaves a permanent scar on your brain.