Movies

Bring Her Back, directed by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou
Trailer: A24

Bring Her Back
Directed by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou
Rated R
Revived 30 May 2025
#BringHerBack

Horror fans might want to Bring Her Back often, but the squeamish will likely hope she stays far away.

Grapefruit

Horror and comedy are possibly the two most subjective movie genres. The styles can vary wildly, appealing to different tastes, such as those who savor lots of hard-core gore over psychological, off-screen thrills and those who get a kick out of no-holds-barred slapstick over verbal jousts loaded with smart dialogue.

Then there’s Bring Her Back, a horror movie directed by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, the Australian twin brothers behind Talk to Me. In interviews and other promotional materials, the duo come across like a couple goofballs who’d get into shouting matches after downing too many pints during a soccer match. They seem like a couple pranksters, but here they’ve unleashed quite a horror story.

Bring Her Back starts like it’s going to take the torture porn route. It’s a kneejerk reaction to seeing people abusing young girls and dining on human flesh, all captured on grainy, static-riddled, low-fidelity VHS tapes.

But, for better (and certainly not for worse), there is some twisted logic to those scenes. Extremely. Deeply. Twisted. Logic that moves away from torture porn while also referencing those videos on occasion.

Bring Her Back is a deeply disturbing movie (as in look away from the screen disturbing) about the cruelty people inflict on others with seemingly no regard to the consequences whatsoever. Furthermore, this is a story about motherhood and it’s centered around Laura (Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water), a clinical child psychologist who retired after some 20 years in the profession. She’s recognized as the best in her field, a caring soul. But she suffered a tragic loss. Her vision impaired daughter died in an accident.

That’s all well and good. It’s an interesting backdrop for a story about motherly love and motherly infatuation gone horribly wrong.

The rest, though, involves some preposterous logic best left to late-night campfire storytelling. Horror works best when there’s some degree of a reality check, something beyond the "psychological break" that can ground the horror. A big "break" is something which figures heavily in Bring Her Back. In this case, it’s a break that strains credulity.

Cathy Was Here

Let’s back up a bit before "bringing her back."

A large part of the story’s focus is on a teenage boy, Andy (Billy Barratt), and his vision-impaired step-sister, Piper (Sora Wong). They’ve been placed in foster care with Laura, but the two kids hope to move out on their own after Andy turns 18 in three short months.

They’re a good pair, both as characters and as castmates. Barratt became the youngest actor ever to win a Best Actor International Emmy for his performance in BBC’s Responsible Child. Wong is vision-impaired and she makes a sweet, impressive theatrical debut here.

As for Hawkins, this is certainly a different role, a major departure from her Happy-Go-Lucky days and Wonka.

The characters and the cast are emblematic of the mixed reaction Bring Her Back can draw. Terrific performances are supported by a surprising amount of thoughtfulness that is countered by some shocking on-screen gore.

There’s the kind of thoughtfulness put into the characters that makes one wonder maybe — just maybe — there’s some deep symbolism to be found in the broken rear view mirror on Andy’s car. After all, Andy — while addressing his own controversies amid allegations of abusing his step-sister — asserts he truly cares about her and he didn’t want Piper to know how ugly the world could be.

A highlight of that considered approach is associated with Piper, who sees things in patterns of blocks and light. The movie — on a couple occasions — effectively presents her point of view as she sees things — in blurred blocks of light — regardless of how disturbing what’s right in front of her might actually be.

Beyond that, though, the Philippou brothers give Piper the breathing room she needs to be a fully realized character. Piper’s not just a stereotypical blind girl in a horrifying story; she’s given moments to demonstrate some surprising aspects of her daily life, such as a unique sports activity she excels at with her vision-impaired peers.

That’s well done.

Airplane to Heaven

Bring Her Back features some artistic flourishes that make this movie stand out in a somewhat frustrating sort of way. It’s a case of highly effective filmmaking, nice technical execution, marred by a fragile story.

That fragility starts to crack with a nonsensical storyline about consuming the old body through cannibalism and purging — essentially puking — that body’s soul into a new body. It’s all in the hopes of bringing Laura’s dead daughter back to life. Following the death of their father under grim circumstances and a shroud of controversy surrounding his parenting style, Laura tells Andy and Piper she believes the soul lingers in a dead body for months. It’s certainly an unconventional thought, one she uses to encourage Billy to say a proper goodbye to his father at the funeral.

So, please, don’t ask Laura about cremation.

As the story moves to more and more shocking tones and visuals, there’s a moment of Sweeney Todd flare, a moment when Piper asks Laura what this object is she’s feeling in a freezer. "Oh my God, what is it?" she asks. "Just meat, my love," Laura responds.

With that, Laura pits brother against sister and muddies the waters for everybody, figuratively and almost literally. Laura’s also housing a little boy, allegedly her son, in a further twist to a story that hinges heavily on the notion of how evil can be hiding in plain sight. Certainly, the underlying horror here is fundamental, something that flows beyond the blood, a simple thought about the evil in some who don’t see the harm in people hurting other people.

Along with Sweeney, there are shades of Psycho and a veiled vibe of The Exorcist. There’s enough good creepiness and horror in Bring Her Back without the on-screen gore it ushers in that one has to wonder what it would’ve been like had the Philippou brothers taken a Hitchcockian approach and turned it into a truly psychological horror movie instead of leaving so little to the imagination.

That Hitchcock strategy would likely include a psychotic break, much like Norman’s final breakdown in the fruit cellar of the Bates house. But in Bring Her Back, the psychotic break comes on too quickly. It’s a convenient and rather disappointing conclusion that abruptly falls into place.

But that’s where subjectivity comes into play. For some, the gore and the 99 minutes of discomfort will fill an unspoken need and hit the spot.

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.

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