In 2022, brothers Danny and Michael Philippou released their first feature film, Talk to Me. I saw it in the theatre and it was one of the best theatre-going experiences I've had. The movie is terrifying and uses body horror in a way that makes people genuinely flip out. The audience reactions--screaming, groaning, whimpering--just added to the experience of the film. I gave Talk to Me an "A" rating.
Now the Philippou brothers are back with another horror film titled Bring Her Back. The teaser-trailer was terrifying and the hype just grew and grew.
Bring Her Back is one of the most grueling and punishing horror movies I've seen. On every level, this film is viscerally upsetting. It's a deeply unpleasant watch and it absolutely succeeds as horror. But it's so intense and so relentless that I just couldn't vibe with it. Not the way I wanted to and not the way I vibed with Talk to Me, which is a similarly bleak film.
Bring Her Back is a movie that is more horrifying than terrifying. I consider a movie "terrifying" when it scares me--my pulse is pounding, I'm curled into a ball on the seat, and I have trouble sleeping that night. Movies that have terrified me in the past include The Ring, It Follows, The Descent, and the Philippou's last movie Talk to Me. Bring Her Back, however, didn't "scare" me. Instead, I watched a film with grotesque body horror (which was impossible to watch, but not "scary") and relentless child abuse and gaslighting. And to be clear: the movie is not shocking for the sake of shocking. It has a very clear and strong message and the emotional and physical torture are for a reason (I'll get to the plot in a minute). But that kind of thing doesn't "scare" me...it horrifies me. It plunges me into rage and despair.
I'm really selling this movie, right? Haha.
Ok, so the plot: teenage siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) are recently orphaned. Their dad dies of a heart attack while in the shower and mom is out of the picture. They are put in foster care with a woman named Laura (Sally Hawkins in a powerhouse performance), who also has a strange, mute son named Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips).
Right from word go, we know something is very wrong with Laura. She mentions that she had a daughter who died. The daughter was blind. Piper is also blind and Laura is immediately smitten with her. Laura is not so thrilled that Andy and Piper come as a pair, and she's especially annoyed that Andy is three months away from turning 18 and plans to apply for guardianship of Piper when he's old enough.
Laura also locks Ollie in his room everyday, so that's not cool.
Bring Her Back is not a mystery: we know exactly what Laura's plan is. She has somehow discovered weird videotapes of an occult ritual where people are able to bring back a dead person. It involves using a demon inside someone to eat the corpse of the dead person and then purge the soul into a new body. Laura sees Piper as that new body, and she's using Ollie as the vessel to transfer Cathy's soul into Piper. Meanwhile, Laura embarks on an epic gaslightling campaign to convince social workers, Piper, and Andy himself that Andy is not suited to be Piper's guardian, despite the very clear love and care he has for Piper. To me, a grown woman torturing a 17 year old boy and driving him insane when all he wants to do is protect his baby sis is the most disturbing aspect of the movie. Moreso than horrific scenes of possessed Ollie chewing on a sharp knife and breaking his teeth on the edge of a table.
Sally Hawkins as Laura, a mother struggling with complicated grief that drives her to destroy other people's lives, is astounding. Laura is a rare villain who is completely three-dimensional, yet I could not empathize with her one bit. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she's not even "evil" despite committing evil acts. She's desperate. Absolutely desperate. But what she does to Ollie, Andy, and Piper is unforgivable.
This is also a random connection, but I'm in the middle of reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which is about a lot of things, but especially about how children--especially children in the foster system--are taken advantage of by adults charged with protecting them. Those same exact themes came up in Bring Her Back. Laura doesn't see Piper as a person--she sees her as a means to an end: bring Cathy back. And she sees Andy as an obstacle to get out of the way.
Bring Her Back is a good movie and very effective as horror. But it is too bleak for me. The movie is suffering heaped on suffering. For ALL the characters. And though some people may empathize with Laura's mindless, desperate drive to bring her daughter back, I did not. I hated Laura. Loving your child is not an excuse to torture other children. Parenthood is not, in fact, sacred in this way. And the movie reminded me of one of the best quotes in horror media of all time: "Sometimes, dead is better."
Grade: B+
