by Miguel E. Rodriguez
DIRECTORS: Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou
CAST: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sora Wong
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 89% Certified Fresh
PLOT: A brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother.
Bring Her Back is a supremely disturbing modern horror film from the two directors of 2022’s celebrated debut film Talk to Me; it’s right up there with Hereditary [2018] and The Babadook [2014]. It brazenly opens with creepy black and white footage of…something…then appears to drop into “Lifetime-movie” mode, lulling us along until WHAM, something truly unbelievable occurs, and it’s just a roller-coaster ride the rest of the way. It’s bloody ingenious. (Emphasis on the “bloody.”)
Andy (Billy Barratt) and the visually-impaired Piper (Sora Wong) are step-siblings who experience an early tragedy, resulting in the two of them being assigned as foster children to Laura (Sally Hawkins), a single mother who has experienced a tragedy of her own. Her child is Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a 10-year-old boy who has been voluntarily mute since his sister, Laura’s daughter, drowned in their pool, now kept empty.
Ominous signs abound. Laura’s house is completely encircled by a strip of white paint. She locks Oliver in his room whenever she leaves the house. At a funeral, Laura surreptitiously clips some hairs from the body in the casket. Andy discovers he has started wetting the bed, but he’s 17 years old; Laura ascribes it to stress, but the real reason is far more…invasive. And over everything is the mute Oliver, lurking in the background, occasionally banging on doors and windows, and more.
Another superb element to the story is the character of Piper, Andy’s visually-impaired sister. I mention this because the filmmakers deliberately held a casting call for actual visually-impaired actresses, settling on the completely non-professional Sora Wong. This aspect of her character is utilized to the hilt throughout the movie, in ways I can’t even hint at without spoiling any surprises. (Okay, I’ll mention one moment…where she knows someone is front of her, feels their head, then turns and asks someone else, “Who is this?” BRRRRR…)
When the Philippou brothers do drop the hammer and get started with the real horror elements, they do not hold back. There are scenes here as terrifying and as off-putting (in a good way, I guess?) as anything in [insert your favorite horror film here]. There are images here that I will not soon forget. In a perfect world, this movie would become so popular among horror fans that those scenes would become part of a pop-culture shorthand. “The knife scene.” “The table scene.” “The Russian videos.” “The ‘self-snacking’ shot.”
I initially had an issue with the very ending, which felt more, shall we say, heartfelt than the rest of the movie implied was coming. However, I learn from IMDb that the Philippous had a much grander ending planned. But everything changed when a close friend of theirs passed away unexpectedly during production; the film is dedicated to him in the closing credits. Danny Philippou is quoted: “[The film’s ending] goes against the conventions a little bit, but it feels more true to life.” Watch the film and judge for yourself if he’s right. As for me, now that I know that piece of trivia, the film’s ending is easier for me to accept.
Here’s hoping that Bring Her Back becomes at least a cult classic. For someone like me, who’s a bit picky with this genre, it’s an easy pick for a new movie to throw into my annual Halloween rotation. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 