The horror genre has come to feel oversaturated with message films: artistically rendered stories that use scares less to frighten and more to manifest psychological or philosophical themes. So when the Philippou brothers—a pair of Australian directors (and twins) who got their start on YouTube—premiered their feature debut, Talk to Me, it felt like a burst of youthful energy. The gnarly cautionary tale followed a group of teens whose attempt at a séance goes disgustingly wrong; it became a film-festival and art-house phenomenon. Impressively, the movie resonated with highbrow audiences without sacrificing the unbridled ambition the directors had used to gain a foothold online, with short films inspired by professional wrestling and pop culture.
Yet their follow-up film, Bring Her Back, feels like a conscious swerve away from those roots. Gone is the sense of teen anarchy; instead, like so many other prestige horror movies, this is a story about relatable trauma and loss with a dark supernatural element. The Philippous have a real gift for composing viscerally disgusting moments that will be tough for even a hardened horror fan to shake. That’s what makes their trudge toward the other side of the genre somewhat of a surprise—it’s a grasp at seriousness from a duo who have previously thrived most when they’re having fun.
Still, the film provides an excellent vehicle for its lead actor, Sally Hawkins. The English Oscar nominee, a favorite of the director Mike Leigh and the on-screen mom to Paddington Bear, has never before been in a straightforward horror movie, but she’s an incredible asset here. She plays a dotty foster mom, Laura, who takes in two teen siblings, Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong), after their father dies. Their new caretaker’s scatterbrained affect just barely hides dangerous ulterior motives; she vacillates between being an overly affectionate friend to her charges and a hypersensitive disciplinarian.
The filmmakers know exactly how to leverage Hawkins’s warm, naturalistic screen presence, using her offbeat sweetness to keep the audience guessing as to her character’s exact level of malevolence. Laura’s home is supposedly a good fit for the brother-sister pair because she had a blind daughter, who died; Piper is visually impaired. Yet the siblings’ new environment curdles pretty quickly as Laura becomes unduly fascinated with Piper’s similarities to her deceased child, and is outwardly hostile toward the fiercely protective Andy. Other goings-on contribute to the film’s eeriness: A shirtless and mute child named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) is wandering around, sporting a suspicious birthmark. Oh, and there are multiple locked doors that absolutely should not be opened.
Credit to the Philippous—Bring Her Back never tries to pretend that anything remotely normal is happening. Laura’s house is a messy, colorful disaster, reflecting a personality that was clearly once charmingly ditzy and has disintegrated into instability. Her approach with Andy in particular swings wildly; one night she’s doing shots with him into the wee hours, reflecting lovingly on the life she used to live, while at other moments she’s waging a psychological campaign—rifling through his things, convincing him he’s wet himself—to drive him from the home. In another actor’s hands, Laura’s erratic malevolence would feel obvious, something even the most incompetent social worker could see through. Hawkins, however, knows how to use her twee energy to her advantage, largely tittering and mumbling away. This makes the flashes of steeliness, when they come, all the more frightening.
Those revelations are also evidence of the directors’ struggle to interpret these hijinks as psychologically revealing, not just wickedly gruesome. Teasing out the mysteries of Laura’s character drew me in; the broad strokes of her preoccupation with Piper make sense, while exactly what she’s planning to do with the girl is hard to pinpoint—especially with the unsettling wild-card presence of Oliver shuffling around in the background. Laura dismisses his odd behavior as that of another traumatized foster child, but its origins are far more disturbing. Exploring the nature of his pain—as well as Andy’s and Piper’s—is where the film’s message becomes most muddled; the abuse that children can face from the adults watching over them is largely treated as the stuff of plot twists.
Bring Her Back is far more confident in its portrayal of Laura’s own story, building to a devastating and intense conclusion about the extent of her loss and her inability to deal with it. Hawkins is up to the challenge, and the rest of the ensemble is strong enough to keep pace. But many of those story beats feel perfunctory; the film comes to life in the nastier, grislier set pieces. A scene in which Oliver intentionally misuses a kitchen utensil is nightmarish and unforgettable; another depicting a brutal, cultish ritual is more visually and narratively unnerving than Laura’s subsequent attempts to replicate it. Some horror directors can blend highbrow storytelling with intense viscera gracefully—a seemingly appealing impulse for those who want to stay on trend without neglecting the roots of the genre. The Philippous do it adequately, but hopefully in whatever comes next for them, they embrace their greater strength once more: setting up audiences for a rollicking good time.
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