The follow-up to Danny and Michael Philippou’s breakout horror hit TALK TO ME explores many of the same themes as their first film, but the film’s focus on grief, loss and abuse can be more than a bit harrowing and haunting.
Danny and Michael Philippou excel in showing how despair can take you to dark places – both emotionally and literally.
TALK TO ME introduced many to the Australian YouTube duo with a film about outcast teens using a hand to play spirit possession and some finding it addictive to lose control. It then went to extremely dark places when these spirits began to take hold on these kids in dark ways that led to self harm, murder and ultimately tragedy.
The Phillipou Brothers’ latest film, BRING HER BACK, further explores these issues; in particular, grief and the dark places it can take you as well as hiding the consequences of abuse. If this sounds like it is likely to be one of the darkest and most depressing films you’re likely to see this year, you’d be right on that mark. BRING HER BACK is unsettling, uncomfortable and a difficult watch, albeit one with some great performances within it. Performances that you’ll likely only want to watch once and never again due to the abyss of sorrow the source material belies.
BRING HER BACK follows two siblings, Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong), whose father suddenly dies at the onset of the film. Piper is blind and we find Andy, aside from suffering from PTSD from discovering his father’s remains in a scalding hot shower, has been physically abused by his father for years but has shielded Piper from this knowledge to keep her from being abused and also because she is blind and he wants her to believe there is some stability in their family. The two are taken in by children’s services by a kindly but eccentric ex-case worker named Laura (played by Sally Hawkins). Laura is the flipside of Hawkins kindly mother from the Paddington films; here she has lost her own blind daughter Cathy in a tragic drowning and the audience is led to believe she is taking Piper on as something of a replacement goldfish. Laura has a bot living with her named Oliver, who seems severely disturbed, and Andy tries to bond with him to one of the most horrifying and disturbing scenes you’re likely to see in film in 2025. We find Laura’s plans for Piper don’t really involve Andy as she manipulates events to have her separated from his sister so she can fulfill a dark desire to replace her daughter in the darkest way possible.
While I won’t spoil the movie and it’s turns, this film is a hard watch. Disturbing doesn’t necessarily mean scary and BRING HER BACK is disturbing in the way something like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is disturbing and off putting and a difficult watch due to its examination of the darkest sides of human nature. It’s not a bad film, or one that isn’t wall crafted. It’s a hard watch with hard subject matter and bad things happen to good people with no real balm of a happy ending. That makes it a film I would be reticent to revisit again while I recognize that it is a well-crafted film that is saying something about grief and the dark places it takes us. That doesn’t mean I would want to experience the message presented here again. Wong’s performance as Piper is excellent and Jonah Wren Phillip’s role as Oliver is one of the most harrowing child performances I’ve ever seen with crazy makeup effects and a commitment to a role I’m very impressed by. Hawkins’ character also seems relatable to a point in terms of what could drive you to these actions, but is an irredeemable character whose actions are completely unjustifiable throughout the film and the attempts to make her grief humanize her at the end don’t really ring true given the dark places she goes.
If you appreciate dark and harrowing film, BRING HER BACK may work for you. It is dark, depressing and sad and well-made, though what it offers is not something that may find a huge audience. It doesn’t offer the rewatchability in its sadness TALK TO ME does, but is art in that it elicits a reaction, albeit one that I feel fine in walking away from as a portrait of sadness, loss and the devastation it can leave in its wake.
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Bring Her Back
★★★ of ★★★★★ stars
Well-crafted horror that is heavy on loss and an abyss full of sad and dark characters.
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OUT OF THEATER REACTION