'Bring Her Back' Shocks to Mixed Effects.
If you're familiar with Danny and Michael Philippou's RackaRacka YouTube channel, then you know subtlety is not their forte. Yet I could never have guessed that these twins from Australia would turn out to be competent filmmakers who understand structure. Most people from YouTube who make a feature film usually create low-production-value, mindless, fan-pandering trash. Talk to Me caught everyone by surprise, not only for being a good horror movie but also for being one of the best horror films of 2023. Two years later, Mike and Danny follow up with a flick that makes that film look like an episode of Barney the Dinosaur. It's not better, just bloodier. Yet, it's still a bizarre horror flick that puts most conventional horror films to shame.
Right off the bat, from frame one, the movie has a WTF factor. The first frame is a birds-eye view of a big circle drawn on the ground where a naked fat guy is performing some sort of sick ritual. It's all recorded on an old-school video camera, resulting in grainy footage that makes it even more disturbing. We don't know what the ritual is until near the end of the movie. Yet, not everything is fully explained. That's done intentionally. Sometimes, the scariest things that happen on screen don't need to be completely explained. They're better off leaving a shroud of mystery, like the naked old lady coming out of the bathtub or the guy in a bear suit performing fellatio in The Shining. You don't know why it's there, as it's up to you to figure it out.
After that nutso scene, we are introduced to our three main characters: Andy (Billy Barratt), Piper (Sora Wong), and Laura (Sally Hawkins). After losing their father and having no mother, Andy and Piper are adopted by their assigned foster mother, Laura. The film wastes no time establishing how nuts Laura is. She introduces Piper, who is almost completely blind, to her deceased stuffed dog as a cruel joke. Later, we learn why Laura is so crazy. She lost her daughter years ago due to drowning. She's never got over her loss, transforming her into an insane, irresponsible foster mother. One of my critic friends leaned over to me during Sally's introduction, saying, "Child Protective Services would never let this person adopt kids." He's right, but this is a horror movie where logic is often disregarded. It's up to the audience to simply take the plot holes with a grain of salt.
There's a red flag when Laura allows the kids to drink hard liquor, but you have no idea how gonzo this person gets. There's a character in the film named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a child who is clearly malnourished and possessed by something supernatural, who's kept like some sort of pet. If you've viewed 'Talk to Me,' then you'll notice many of the same motifs are repeated. There's horrific self-mutilation that's relentless. The movie shines with its lack of cheap jump scares. The real terror, aside from the gore, is the psychological games Laura plays on Andy and Piper. A huge part that makes the film work is Sally Hawkins' incredible performance.
Sally doesn't hold anything back. She goes from creepy to full-blown shouting and assault in the blink of an eye. Yet, Hawkins commits to the character in a believable manner that forms her more as a person than simply an object of terror. She reminds us all of that crazy aunt we have who's just one bad day away from going completely off the deep end. However, there's a degree of sympathy attached to Laura that we lose when she obliterates the ethical line.
The Philippous hits the gas hard at the beginning of the film, yet it provides a slow burn, peeling back the layers to reveal Laura's depravity. When we discover the enormous gaslighting Laura performs on Andy and Piper, it's clear that nobody is safe. Bring Her Back isn't afraid to embrace taboo aspects that, if not handled with a solid script, could break the film. Fortunately, it's managed with enough careful structuring and tactful plot twists to make it mostly flow smoothly.
If there is a point of criticism, it is that the picture seems to exploit shock value to gain attention. But its gore never exists for no reason. Without giving much away, it's about feeding the soul of a person who's lost theirs. Laura's motivation is understandable, yet her insanity is so heightened that it sometimes makes her character appear one-dimensional. Bring Her Back is stomach-turning with effective yet predictable twists. After Talk to Me and this movie, I'd like to see if the Philippous have something other than a shock fest up their sleeves for the next film. Or are they just a one-trick pony? So far, they've proved me wrong. But not completely.
