BRING HER BACK REVIEW

“Another impressive and chilling horror film… not for the faint of heart.”

Two years back, Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou made quite a few waves with their debut horror film, Talk to Me, and now they’re back with another horror flick that may be even more jarring, but also something that’s quite unique and original. Their follow-up is another one of those horror movies where you really shouldn’t know too much going into it, and I certainly am going to do my best to avoid spoiling things, including some of the more shocking moments, and believe me, there are many of those.

In some ways, the plot for Bring Her Back is relatively simple, at least at first, but it’s how various elements are introduced that ends up making it far more complex, though not necessarily in a bad way. We meet Sora Wong’s blind Piper and her older step-brother Andy (Billy Barratt) just before they find their father dead in the shower. Because Andy isn’t quite 18 and won’t be allowed custody of his step-sister, he urges social services to at least allow them to live with the same foster parents. They’re set up to live with Sally Hawkins’ Laura, a quirky widow who is obviously more interested in being Piper’s mother than her older teen brother, who already has his issues even before they lost their father. Laura also lives with a young, mute, and seemingly autistic boy named Ollie (John Wren Phillips), who… oh, I’m just going to say it… is quite strange and also very violent. Laura lost her own blind daughter Cathy, and clearly, she sees Piper as a suitable replacement, but Andy is suspicious of Laura, especially since she seems hellbent on splitting the two siblings apart.

I can’t remember if I saw the trailer for Bring Her Back sometime before seeing the movie, though it’s pretty vague about what to expect, mainly focusing on Ollie, even though it’s more about how moving in with Laura affects the relationship between Piper and Andy. It’s a difficult film to talk about at length, not just to avoid spoilers but also because there’s a lot of strange stuff going on that’s fairly hard to explain even once you get to the last act and things become somewhat but not altogether clearer.

Bring Her Back incorporates elements of witchcraft, cults, and even zombies, without being one specific horror sub-genre over another, while much of it involves the two kids trying to figure out why Laura is always acting so strangely and what the deal is with Ollie. At one point, Andy finds Ollie locked in his room while Laura is out shopping with Piper, and he makes the mistake of letting him outside. Much of the mystery about what is happening revolves around Ollie’s erratic behavior, which often involves violence, and activity that often leaves the audience quite shaken and shocked. There are other parts where you’re just watching without really knowing what you’re watching, and that’s also quite brilliant on the part of the Philippous.

It doesn’t take long to realize how much this film is able to do with this one main location and merely four actors, and this definitely seems to be Phillipous’ specialty, since Talk to Me also dealt with family and the supernatural. Sally Hawkins is fantastic in this role that’s far more evil-leaning than we’ve ever seen from her, but the younger actors are also pretty fantastic, particularly Sora Wong, who just brings so much to her role as the viewers’ entry point into this odd world of the occult. These filmmakers clearly like putting their young casts through their paces, and this one takes the young cast to some particularly dark and even grim places.

The gore in this one is on par with Bava and some of the Italian masters, and because you’re so discombobulated about what is happening, it hits the viewer even harder when Ollie’s behavior just spirals out of control in a dangerous way.

The Phillipou Brothers have created another impressive and chilling horror film, this one being even more disturbing than Talk to Me, and because of that, it’s not for the faint of heart.

Rating: 8/10

Bring Her Back opens nationwide on Friday, May 30.