By Explorations of grief are nothing new in horror movies. From The Babadook to Hereditary to Midsommar, Bring Her Back is drawing from a fairly well-worn playbook. And yet, that isn’t that big of a deal, at least to me. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen something genuinely fresh and interesting, and if Bring Her Back is going to be drawing inspiration from other horror movies, at the very least, it’s taking cues from some of the best.
I say all of this because it’s very easy just to write Bring Her Back off as being derivative of other horror movies, but the directors here aren’t likely to just ape what already worked and call it a day. Even though I wasn’t a fan of it, I was at least interested in how Danny and Michael Philippou explored drug addiction through the guise of a horror film in their last movie, Talk To Me. They clearly have a strong handle on what makes horror movies work, and given how Talk To Me was their first film, their sophomore effort surely would iron out some wrinkles they had directing a feature film for the first time.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that I loved Bring Her Back, but I respect some risks it took in telling its story. I won’t say they all worked, but this definitely is going to be one of the most polarizing horror films of 2025.
Bring Her Back
Directors: Danny and Michael Philippou
Release Date: May 30, 2025 (Theatrical)
Rating: R
Shortly after the death of their father, step-siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) are placed into the foster care system and will soon be separated. Andy is fiercely protective of his sister, mostly due to her blindness. Luckily, they’re both placed in the same home under the care of Laura (Sally Hawkins), a psychologist whose daughter drowned in an accident years ago… at least until Andy turns 18 in three months and takes on guardianship. At first, things seem relatively fine in the house, outside of the increasingly uncomfortable actions of a mute foster child living there, named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), but then more strange behaviors begin to occur, and it becomes very clear that something’s not quite right with Laura and she’s not exactly over the death of her daughter.
From the first few minutes, it becomes abundantly clear that Bring Her Back is a dark movie. Every character has their own respective trauma, and they’re all deeply uncomfortable once you begin to peel back the layers. This is a film where you truly do empathize with each of its characters, even the ones you can’t stand. You can understand and rationalize why each character makes the decisions that they do, and while there may be some lingering questions as to the hows and whys of their situations, they’re easily forgivable thanks to the emotional weight they provide.
Take Sally Hawkins, for example. Within moments of meeting her, you almost instantly get the impression that there’s something else going on than her simply being a charitable woman. While she gravitates towards Piper out of what seems like love, her interactions with Andy feel almost transactional. She puts on the impression of a caring woman, but it’s so forced for Andy and easily broken that it’s almost comical. We know not to trust her, and she becomes a hateable character at numerous points, but also a pitiable one. That doesn’t excuse any of her actions, mind you, but Sally Hawkins does an excellent job balancing these different emotional lives. She has a totally different repertoire with each character and changes on a dime to get the results she wants, making her vastly entertaining to watch.
Copyright: A24
Because of this oppressive manipulation, the tone of Bring Her Back is bleak. Every character starts the film miserable, and they end the film just as, if not more so, miserable. The few bright spots in these characters’ lives are limited, and even moments that are meant to be emotionally relieving get twisted into something malicious. That being said, don’t mistake empathy with emotionally affecting. While Bring Her Back does a great job of letting us understand the emotional lives of its characters, it never quite lets us feel for them. We can sympathize with them when bad things happen, but I never felt moved by their suffering.
A part of this does come down to how underdeveloped many of the characters are outside of Laura. Piper feels more like a blank slate that, at points, is only defined by her disability. There’s little depth to her character, and while there’s a lot more going on with Andy and his backstory, the film is content to write him as the crazed victim constantly. He’s the person who says that something is wrong with Laura, but people’s responses to his claims are usually just to throw out his backstory as a justification for why they’re not listening to him. It’s frustrating – intentionally so – but after a certain point, you can only watch Andy call out Laura’s oddities so many times. I admit, it’s complicated to talk about the emotional life in Bring Her Back because of how it talks about sensitive topics like child abuse, but the film doesn’t even explore that more deeply. It just uses it as a shorthand for why Andy is untrustworthy, which feels weird and hard to stomach at times.
So the emotional lives of its characters are complicated, to say the least, and its horrific elements are most likely going to be polarizing too. That’s not inherently a bad thing since horror, by and large, should be polarizing, but Bring Her Back is content to shock you with its horror. A scene could be playing out perfectly normally, then jump to 11 as something graphic and intense plays out, and you’re thrown into a panic, much like its cast. When this first occurs, it’s striking, and the visuals of the scene will stay in my mind for a while, but then the film will play the same trick on you again and again. While still striking, it does lead to diminishing returns.
Copyright: A24
Is the horror of Bring Her Back just shock? I’d say no. The grim tone is pervasive throughout the film, and when it finally starts to click what’s going on in Laura’s house, the film will present more unnerving imagery that isn’t reliant on gore. There’s a lot of show, don’t tell in Bring Her Back, and it’s expected that the audience will need to pay attention to fully understand what’s going on. In that regard, I think the directors kind of chickened out on fully committing to that philosophy, because of the use of a video throughout the film. It’s never explained what it is or where it came from, but whenever it pops up, it’s basically to spell out to the audience what’s happening. I get that it’s needed to help catch some people up who don’t know what’s going on, and I honestly don’t mind that we never learn about where this video came from or the people within it. Regardless, the tapes feel like they were included because it was in some studio notes and not because it was an integral part of the story.
Honestly, I’m a bit torn with Bring Her Back. I do like it a lot more than Talk To Me, mostly because of its handling of darker subject matters, and I feel that Bring Her Back handles its metaphors and themes more competently, but that isn’t saying much. It’s a messy film, one that has both a palpable atmosphere dripping with rich emotions and characters that feel underdeveloped. The horrific concepts that the film plays with are juicy, and the tension is palpable, but it falls into the realm of shock more often than necessary.
I said at the beginning of this that Bring Her Back takes inspiration from other grief-based horror movies like The Babadook and Hereditary. It doesn’t surpass either of them, mostly because those films were laser-focused on delivering brutal examinations of grief in a way that only horror can. I commend Bring Her Back for trying to follow in those films’ shadows, but it can step out from their shadows. It tries to break away, but a few too many issues prevent it from doing so.
