I enjoy horror films, but they really don’t scare me much anymore. When I first started watching horror as a teen, I would lie awake at night recounting the most violent or upsetting imagery, feeling a sense of unease that wouldn’t subside for hours. That doesn’t really happen anymore though, call it experience or just numbing to this stuff over time.
Enter Bring Her Back, one of the first movies to truly upset me in a very long time. Let me be clear that this is not a criticism. I thought this movie was incredible, but like other incredible movies that are hard to watch, I don’t know if I’ll be watching this again anytime soon. As I left the theater, many of my fellow moviegoers seemed to have very similar thoughts.
Bring Her Back follows half-siblings Andy and Piper as they’re fostered following the tragic loss of their father. Things start to look strange though when they meet Ollie, the son of their foster mother Laura. In addition to the sinister blank stare and lack of communication, Ollie seems to be hostile and almost aggressive at times. In typical horror movie fashion, things only get worse from there for the siblings, but particularly for Andy.
This movie has a very strong theme of grief and processing loss throughout. I know that “horror is trauma” has become an overdone motif, but here it feels very organic. Many of the characters talk about their lost loved ones openly, but in a way that feels like a natural processing of an impossible situation. It’s not preachy, and it makes even the less redeemable characters complicated. Andy’s PTSD after the loss of his father is particularly powerful, and the audience is made to feel his anxiety when he encounters situations that remind him of finding his father’s corpse.
This movie creates an environment of dread from its first moments. Though the open scene features some disturbing demonic imagery, the movie doesn’t jump scare or set up anything very graphic. The whole first act is quiet and patient, with a large focus on the sound design of mundane items like a shower, floorboards shifting, and the ambience of nature. There’s not much music, so the silence with the occasional loud creak from a closing door really sets you on edge.
Even with the tense atmosphere, I still felt lulled into a false sense of security. I’d seen the Philippou brothers’ directorial debut Talk to Me, so I was convinced I was mentally prepared for what this duo had to offer. Spoiler alert: I was not.
When this movie pops off, it goes hard and fast. The gore in these scenes is generally hard to watch, and no one in the theater seemed prepared for just how violent it got. All of these scenes are done practically, making them look and feel as raw as possible. Emotionally, it felt like watching the climax of Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. Once it starts, it just holds you in a vice grip until the movie’s end.
The cast is all excellent here, especially Sally Hawkins as foster mom Laura and newcomer Sora Wong in her first-ever role as Piper. The star of this movie though is Jonah Wren Phillips, who plays the demon child role so convincingly that I genuinely forgot it was a twelve-year-old child actor. He definitely has a future in horror acting if he wants it, and I’m looking forward to seeing him in more projects in the future.
Bring Her Back is definitely one for the books. It shows that Talk to Me wasn’t a fluke, and the Philippou brothers have the juice. If this is only their second movie, I cannot imagine what they’re going to be turning out five or ten years from now. They’ve shown that they have the patience to balance a compelling narrative with a skilled cast, and the restraint to bring out their big guns in the perfect moment. I’d recommend it without reservation if all my friends were sickos like me, but as it stands, this is a rough watch if you’re not into body horror. If you are, you should check this one out in the theaters (and suffer with me).
