Can’t Un-see
Danny and Michael Philippou’s sophomore chiller is a lot more of the same, but is worth its weight in body horror gold.
Bring Her Back
Directors: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou • Writers: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton
Australia • 1hr 44mins
Opens Hong Kong May 29 • III
Grade: B
A couple of years back, in 2022, Danny and Michael Philippou (AKA RackaRacka) made quite a splash with Talk to Me, a clever spin on grief and addiction juiced by some deliciously nasty SFX and a persistent tone of disquiet and foreboding. It was the Philippous first film, and so it’s not entirely surprising they couldn’t quite land that plane, but they showed off a unique horror MO and certainly made a case to watch out for their second. And their second film is now here: Bring Her Back.
Bring Her Back stars the great Sally Hawkins as Laura, a foster parent who welcomes recently orphaned step-siblings Andy (Billy Barratt, much better here than on Apple TV+’s Invasion) and Piper (Sora Wong) into her home, which means joining the mysterious and troubled Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips, truly creepy) who’s already there. Laura is a trauma counsellor with years of experience in child services, making her an ideal foster, though she’s still grieving the death (here we go) of her own daughter, Cathy. She lives on a rambling cabin-type house in the… woodsy burbs? Ollie spends most of his time locked in her room. It’s all very weird.
Also very weird is the fact that Bring Her Back has Talk to Me’s Exact. Same. Structure. It’s identical. It starts with vague yet frantic opening set-up scene(s), drops in some supernatural body-borrowing with added body horror this time, layers on the palpable, rising dread and finishes strong though it has absolutely no idea what to do with the concept they’ve created with returning collaborator Bill Hinzman in between shocks. That said, the Philippous have a few things working in their favour – chiefly a sweaty-palmed level of tension and a stand-out turn by Hawkins. Who suspected Paddington’s mum could be so sinister?
Brace for impact
Andy and Piper wind up at Laura’s house because of their father’s sudden death by shower misadventure – but it’s a close call. The kids’ kind social worker Wendy (Sally-Anne Upton) explains that for unknown reasons Laura’s only interested in taking in Piper, and they only stay together after Andy kicks up a fuss. He’s protective of Piper. Not only are they each other’s only family, she has vision difficulties and can only see light and shape. That’s a convenient way to 1) put Piper in danger, 2) drive a wedge between the siblings and 3) keep Piper on the right side of the idiot line. She can’t be careful of what she can’t see. To make matters worse, Andy turns 18 in a matter of months and has every intention of applying for guardianship of his sister. This displeases Laura. Let the gaslighting, invasion of space and provocation to actionable violence begin. While this is going on, Ollie is lurking around the house, mute, unnervingly playing with the cat in the drained pool and occasionally visiting the creaky shed out back. It goes without saying Andy finds Laura a bit sus from jump, as the kids say, and he’s not quite willing to blindly trust Laura, no matter how much she fawns over Piper – and especially after she forces him to kiss his dad’s corpse for “closure”. An afternoon at home alone with Ollie cements his suspicions and shit starts to go seriously, seriously sideways. The Moment (you’ll know it when you see it) it does cannot be unseen. Ever. It’s cringe-inducingly, horrifically fantastic.
Bring Her Back is as strong as it is 100% thanks to Hawkins, whose unhinged performance gives what’s essentially a domestic waking nightmare its guts. Maternally warm one second and unsettlingly scary the next, Hawkins brings a looming violence to every scene and gilds Laura’s batshit behaviour with enough genuine sorrow that we can easily understand how the impact of her grief could remake who she is – or who we are in the same situation. To their credit, Barratt, newcomer Wong (who is actually vision impaired and made news in Australia as an over-achiever long ago) and Phillips play off Hawkins’s humming nervous edginess well, with Barratt serving young Pete Doherty energy as Andy finally wrestles with his own demons, and Phillips working wonders with two words and a dead-eyed, thousand-yard stare. Their performances are complemented by oppressive, subjective cinematography by Aaron McLiskey and visceral sound design by Emma Bortignon.
But not even Hawkins can shake the familiar feeling and unmistakable whiff of carbon paper hovering over Bring Her Back. The Philippous have admitted they wrote this and Talk to Me around the same time, and so it’s easy to see how the themes of loss and grief and supernatural elements of resurrection and possession could repeat. That’s no excuse for not stopping the leak they know is there. Instead of one more pass over the script, the Philippous handwave away any explanation of the supernatural mechanics and totally lose track of the mythology, eventually just giving up altogether for a “Fuck it, watch this skin tear off” diversion. I’m totally okay with that, but it keeps Bring Her Back in solid territory as opposed to awesome. The Philippous haven’t found their Dead by Dawn yet, my hope for them after their debut, so maybe the third time will be the charm. No shame there: Army of Darkness lives in awesome territory.