Bring Her Back – Australia – 2025 – Horror, Psychological, Mystery
Directed by: Danny Philippou; Michael Philippou
Written by: Danny Philippou; Bill Hinzman
Main Players: Sally Hawkins; Billy Barratt; Sora Wong; Jonah Wren Phillips; Stephen Phillips
Siblings Piper (Wong) and Andy (Barratt) live with their father Phil (Stephen Phillips). Piper is blind, and has a bit of an odd facial expression along with rapidly moving eyes, which makes her fitting in with kids her age tough for her. Kids are mean, and make fun of any differences, especially pronounced features.
Andy sticks up for her, and provides a strong role model, despite their rougher family life. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes, and their father shockingly passes away. This sends the pair to a new home until Andy can become Piper’s guardian in around a year as he turns 18. It’s not too long to hold out, and his new surroundings with the kind foster mother Laura (Hawkins), and her foster child Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who is mute. A new semi-brother for Andy and Piper is well accepted by the pair.
Laura is used to dealing with blind people, as tragically her own daughter Cathy died years prior, accidentally drowning in the swimming pool. Laura is seemingly happy to have Andy and especially Piper in her fold, but things start going off the rails bit by bit.
Laura seemingly favors Piper, and this starts leading to some additional traumas for Andy, who reveals a dark past with his father, one that Piper herself never knew and has trouble reconciling with. As past elements and abuses start to rise to the surface, blood starts to fly in unexpected ways.
Bring Her Back is a truly horrific psychological terror of a film. The behavior in the movie is awful, and so is the violence. It does its job very well, with visceral performances to match the in-your-face graphic gore. The slight mystery element drives the film along, and while it takes its time to build its characters, it really gets going once it hits its stride.
The film features some pretty disgusting scenes, so viewers beware. This is for horror fans only, and fans of psychological torture. This movie absolutely does its job, and it is well-filmed and well-acted, but mileage will vary due to some narrative abstraction as well as violence levels.
See This If You Liked:
Hereditary; Talk to Me; Midsommer; The Dark and the Wicked; Oculus; When Evil Lurks (Cuando Acecha la Maldad); The Babadook; The Witch; Smile; The Black Phone; Goodnight Mommy (Ich She, Ich Seh); Oddity; Men; Sinister; Speak No Evil (2022; 2024); Together (2025)
Score:
8.0