Bring Her Back (2025)
Director(s): Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Writer(s): Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
Starring: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips
As with all horror success stories, all eyes become LASER focused on the follow up. Yes, it’s a lot of pressure and perhaps unfair to the artist but there is something to be said about pushing the artist to bring forth quality product and have that kind of accountability so yeah, perhaps it can be seen as a win-win for all. The writers/directors of 2022’s Talk to Me which became a HUGE hit were now in a position to make their next move. They were a feel-good story of YouTube creators gone mainstream; a couple of content creator goofs called RackaRacka that made quality sketches that got their big break and they delivered with a clever take on possession horror that utilized social media has a vehicle for telling their cautionary tale of messing with the afterlife. Chef’s kiss story telling and terrifying visuals…so, what’s next? These folks made the right move by keeping true to their roots while elevating their brand of tone and storytelling and that’s what Bring Her Back gives the audience.
It’s almost like elevating an already great dish; the first thing they did was elevate the ingredients; they stayed in the same lane as far as the paranormal and the idea of spirits taking over bodies (trying not to be spoiler-rific here) with the story but right away, they enhanced the ingredients by adding a superstar to the cast with the addition of Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominated actress, Sally Hawkins. With that kind of pedigree, this movie was already elevated to a new level and to a certain extent, a new level of legitimacy. Secondly, this movie, unlike Talk to Me acts more like a Horror-Suspense-Mystery where there a centralized plot surrounding uncovering something where the audience is on the edge of their seat trying to figure out the overall plot. It’s a slow burn which makes the horror aspects of the movie much more impactful since the audience is more invested. The themes are the same, but again, it’s elevated now because you’re paying more attention to the details.
The story itself is more intimate with the story centering around a pair of step-siblings who recently lost their parents that find themselves living with a new foster mom (played by Hawkins) who is recently grieving the loss of her own child and Oliver, another foster chid who is suffering from a mysterious illness. As time passes however, it becomes clear that there are more sinister plans in motion as the siblings begin to slowly uncover how everyone in that house is all connected to something much more dangerous that can lead their doom.
The performances this time around, for me, were elevated as well. Of course Sally Hawkins was incredible, but in a way, I expected that of her already being a fan of all of her performances already but I was very impressed with Jonah Wren Phillips as Oliver. This kid DISGUSTED ME and I mean that as a compliment as your FearTastic Vault keeper! My goodness, there were parts of this flick where I was questioning child-labor laws when watching some of these scenes because the way this kid was utilized in order to move the plot forward made me wrench in my seat in parts and that was definitely due to Jonah’s performance and the director’s guidance so KUDOS all around for the performance. Sora Wong’s performance was pivotal to the plot and gave the emotional backbone required for the story to work and she delivered on all cylinders.
This is one of those movies where it relied (and in some ways gambled) on the performances. If the actors could not deliver on how they performed these scenes, I do not think it would have been as effective. This is the kind of movie where you couldn’t just get away with gory scenes or cool kills since again, this was very heavy, plot driven. You were trying solve a mystery with this one and once you were once you were in on the plot of the antagonist, then at that point, the actors were in charge of taking you to the finish line.
Bring Her Back was a SOLID sophomore effort for this creative writer/director duo and they did their job in making me wait in giddy anticipation for their third, fourth, fifth, etc. entry into the horror realm so I’m sure you’ll be seeing more reviews soon!
Life is FAR more interesting when we take interest in things that scare us.