Its been a few years since the Australian twins, Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, became the latest names in the horror genre to reach notoriety after the release of Talk To Me (2022). Bring Her Back is the latest release from the pair who seem to be becoming genre-specific directors with follow ups to Talk To Me also being announced recently.
Bring Her Back had the same impact on me as their predecessor did in many different ways. The success of the film and also its downfalls seem to match each other in a way that there overall success of the films delivered in the same way. It is pretty usual for films to overstay their welcome, where something that feels amazing at first ends up becoming a total wreck. This film (and its predecessor) had the opposite effect where I found the opening third absolutely tedious, until something seemed to click. I’ll start with the negatives just like the arc of the movie. The writing struggles to deliver any connection between audience and main protagonists where your thrown into a trying situation of seeing them lose their Dad but haven’t built up any bond with them to actually care about it. What is more frustrating is that they included the interesting new angle of the step sister (Sora Wong) being partially sighted, but the film didn’t really seem to make much of this. Feeling cinema is important to any movie but should be of the upmost importance to a horror film that also includes a nearly blind character. You should be able to feel what she does and sense her surroundings in a comparative way, the film doesn’t achieve this at all and almost forgets about her being blind other than to fill in plot holes that would ruin the story without her being blind. The supernatural element with the danger of crossing this mystical boundary line is another worn out trope that horror films seem to be relying heavily upon currently. In the trailers before watching this film was another horror movie that used the whole ‘dont step over this line otherwise bad things will happen’ idea which I was bored of even before the film started.
As already said, these gripes came early on in the film. It didn’t necessarily recover from any of these issues but the delivery in different aspects is something that me reevaluate my opinion on it. For a horror film, it actually managed to deliver on the horror. It may not have made you feel anything from the step sisters perspective, but it definitely made you feel each stab upon the skin or removal of teeth. The infliction style of these wounds is always a more powerful way to get an audience to hide behind their hands at sheer horror of the spectacle. When someone else inflicts injury upon someone it makes you question humanity, when it is inflicted upon yourself then you question your own beliefs. There were also a good few numbers of successful jump scares, they used the moment to shock rather than getting the audience ready beforehand. Sally Hawkins stars in the film in what is another fairly water drenching performance to add to her back catalogue of getting a soaking within a film. She does what she always does best, delivering a solid and reliable performance. You see her evil ways coming from a mile off but when she gets to the deranged stage of the story, she is able to play it in a very convincing way.
Just like Talk To Me, the film delivers a solid horror film in a oversaturated market. It creates something that feels fresh to the genre and moves away from the negative tropes like useless jumpscares and overplaying the supernatural elements. It may not create the greatest bond between audience and characters along with a fairly poor script, but the only genre that can still delivery a great piece of entertainment without these elements is horror and as a pure spectacle it delivered upon that. The Philippou twins have so far managed to create interesting horror films that appeal to their short stories background (being YouTube stars) and able to pass on the biggest test of finding material from this to facilitate a full length movie.