PLOT: After the sudden death of their father, two Australian teens (Billy Barratt and Sora Wong) find themselves stuck with an eccentric foster mother (Sally Hawkins), with a dark secret.
REVIEW: Bring Her Back, the sophomore film from Talk to Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou, has a purposely familiar plot. How often have we seen horror movies about orphaned children saddled with creepy foster parents? Yet, the execution is anything but familiar, with the directing duo proving once again that they’re the real thing, with an extreme horror flick that should turn into one of A24’s biggest recent hits.
The movie is a much slower burn than Talk to Me, with it embracing an altogether different kind of energy. If that movie were a rock song, this would be a ballad (with some power chords thrown in for good measure). It boasts fantastic performances all around and some unbearably gruesome, squeamish moments that left the packed crowd I saw this with squealing in terror.
Like Talk to Me, the movie centres around some extremely likable kids. Billy Barratt (last seen as the young version of Kraven) is Andy, a seventeen-year-old Aussie with a violent incident in his past he’s trying to live down. When his father dies, despite his being only three months away from turning eighteen, he’s got an uphill road to prove he can take care of his beloved younger sister, the visually impaired Piper (Sora Wong). Both Barratt and Wong are superb, with the latter visually impaired for real and proving to be a real find as the funny Piper, who can’t stand being treated with kid gloves.
Sally Hawkins delivers the most unhinged performance of her career as Laura, perhaps cinema’s most unfit foster parent ever, with her trying to befriend the kids (even going so far as to get them drunk at one point), but having designs on Sora that Andy can’t figure out. All he knows is it has something to do with a mute Forster child named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) who constantly breaks into spasms and does extreme things like chew on butcher knives, cutting out teeth in the process.
It takes quite a while before anything supernatural or horrific in the traditional sense happens, with the Philippou brothers instead focusing on the lopsided dynamic, with Laura exploiting Billy’s past to make him seem dangerous to the authorities. Once the gore kicks in, the imagery is extreme, although it lands differently than the adrenaline-charged Talk to Me did. This is a thoroughly different kind of experience, but a dazzling one that will leave many wondering how any other traditional indie horror flick will top it this year.
It’s also a movie that demands to be seen on the big screen, with Aaron McLisky’s cinematography and the sound design crying out for top-notch exhibition. I’ll always regret having experienced Talk to Me for the first time on a screener link I watched on my laptop, as the Phillipous unapologetically make movies for the biggest screens possible. They’re gifted as far as pace and casting go, with Wong the kind of actress who may have never gotten a shot otherwise, but proves to be one of the most likable screen debuts in recent memory. Horror fans and everyone else are going to eat this up.
