The rise of filmmaking duo Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou (aka RackaRacka) has been truly remarkable. Australian brothers who began exploring their love for stunts, spectacle, and storytelling through videos on Facebook, then Youtube, they made a marvelous feature film debut in 2023 with the terrifically terrifying Talk to Me. The haunted hand thriller not only wowed critics but also awed audiences, making it a bona fide box office hit. Now, they return with a somber sophomore effort, Bring Her Back.
Like Talk to Me, their follow-up is a riveting horror movie about grief, once more centered on a teen protagonist all too familiar with the topic. This time, screenwriters Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, who also wrote Talk to Me, bring a sophisticated blend of empathy, agony, and body horror into Bring Her Back, which makes it a less raucous but more mature movie than their last.
But fear not. With two-time Academy Award nominee Sally Hawkins fronting this film, Bring Her Back is just as frightening as the Philippou brothers' first... maybe even more so.
Sally Hawkins goes psycho-biddy in Bring Her Back.
The English actress, whose roles include a sweet mum in Paddington and a receptive lover to a sea creature in The Shape of Water, plunges into horror with an alarming mix of earnestness and intensity. In Bring Her Back, she plays a foster mom to two half-siblings who have been recently orphaned.
Young Piper (newcomer Sora Wong) is partially sighted, but fearless in exploring the world around her. Her older half-brother Andy (Billy Barratt) is more hesitant, perhaps because he has seen horrors she can't imagine — like exactly how their father died.
When they turn up at the cozy rural cottage of their new foster mom, Laura (Hawkins), she seems like a ray of light. Like her heroine in Happy-Go-Lucky, she wears bright colors and a big smile, all the more welcoming for scared or scarred children who show up at her door. But beneath her cheery disposition, Laura is also grappling with grief, having lost her daughter a year before.
It seems she buries her pain by caring for other children in need, including the odd Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips), who stares coldly at his new adopted siblings but won't speak a word. Bound to Andy's perspective for much of the film, the audience sees Laura as he does, which is to say that her facade of motherly warmth hides a cruel streak. But even the suspicious teen boy can't imagine what horrors lie in store for him and his siblings.
Bring Her Back channels grief into terror.
Pulling from their own experiences with grief, the co-directing Philippous explore this gnarly emotion through horrific twists, nerve-shredding gore, and a roaring undercurrent of religious horror. As teased in the trailer, there's something occult going on in Laura's house. Wisely, as they did with Talk to Me, the Philippou brothers don't get caught up in explaining the supernatural evil at the root of their horror story. Instead, we — like the teens plagued by it — experience the uncertainty of it with dread and urgency. It's that awful sensation you feel in your bones that something is wrong, but you can't clearly explain it in order to get help. And even if you could, who would believe you?
This feeling of being trapped by Laura (and the foster system that venerates her) reflects the inescapability of grief. Then, the Philippous push harder on the bruise of such an injury and into the surreal. There are moments in mourning where the loss feels so big it's incomprehensible, and the very world around us feels impossible and alien. So for Andy (and to a lesser degree Piper) to feel out of sorts in Laura's strange realm is not just unnerving atmospherically, but also emotionally truthful to the experience of grieving And yet, the Philippous have empathy for their villain, making clear not only her pain but also her doubts and need for external validation to continue her plan. While Laura is the antagonist of Bring Her Back, tormenting the children in her care, grief is the villain that has twisted her from mom to monster.
When she faces off against a willful Andy, Hawkins shows both sides of Laura. In moments, she is almost cloyingly sweet as she laughs and plays with Piper. But in others, the guarded tone she uses with Ollie is jarring. The manic look in her eye as she lies to Piper's face and then winks at Andy as if he's a co-conspirator is alarming. The determined stare when she plots at night with locked doors and a bucket of piss is the stuff of night terrors. Hawkins, a performer who has long been championed as a wonderful actor, gives a career-best performance here, leaning into the joys and absolute agonies of motherhood with a ferocity that is breathtaking.
The children of Bring Her Back are astonishing.
Hawkins is a force of nature as Laura. But incredibly the Philippou brothers have found young actors who can match presence her onscreen. Barratt, who recently played Young Dimitri in Kraven: The Hunter, has the unenviable job of shouldering the film's emotional weight, while pushing back against Hawkins' Laura.
Nearly 18, Andy is in that awkward space between childhood and adulthood, and Barratt's physicality reflects this, teetering with a blend of brute strength and gentle awkwardness. He shifts his weight in scenes where Andy feels ungrounded. His smile flashes sheepishly, revealing glittering braces that make him seem younger still. But when threatened, he is able to rear up with a macho fury — one that Laura will use against him.
By contrast, Piper is spirited and blissfully bratty. Wong has a radiant charisma, whether she's playing sports with her friends or razzing her brother. In her first onscreen role, Wong is effortless and enchanting. The breeziness (or, arguably, resiliency) she brings to Piper makes the film's climax all the scarier, because the young girl is basically a princess who doesn't realize this isn't a castle and that's not a queen. It's a lair with a wicked witch waiting.
Even more remarkable, however, is the performance delivered by Jonah Wren Phillips. As Ollie, Phillips has few vocal expressions, as Laura says trauma has led to selective mutism. He instead communicates through long, hard stares that reflect the abyss. As the movie goes on and Laura's secrets spill out, Phillips' role becomes intensely physical, demanding prop work, disfiguring prosthetic make-up, and body horror gags that work because of his commitment and the Philippou brothers' dedication to practical effects.
Bring Her Back's scenes of violence are not just gory. They are an aural and visual assault so intense they are tactile. The sounds of metal on teeth or the crunch of wood is so precise you can practically feel it. That collides with seamless visual effects and Phillips' uniquely haunting performance to create a new icon in horror. While Laura might scare you, and Andy could break your heart, Ollie will follow you home and haunt you.
All of this to say, Bring Her Back is extraordinary. For those who found Talk to Me sensationally scary, this follow-up will thrill with its deeply deranged tale of heartache and body horror. But the Philippous went deeper, presenting a character-driven drama with flares of psycho-biddy and religious horror. That heady combination not only makes for a satisfyingly scary as hell movie, but also a profound one.
Grief is an immense emotion that hits like waves. It disorients. It destroys. It catches us off guard. Bring Her Back captures all of these elements of grief and more.
While I gasped and screamed at the Philippous' latest, I also held my breath and cried. While they have warned critics and audiences their new film is "bleak," I found it beautiful. Alongside a story of psychological torment, physical torture, and murder, Bring Her Back also offers a story of love beyond death, and how that can be a double-edged sword.
