No sophomore slump for the Philippou brothers! “Bring Her Back” (2025) focuses on a pair of siblings, big brother Andy (Billy Barratt) and little sister Piper (Sora Wong in her feature film debut). After their father dies (Stephen Phillips), they end up in the isolated home of Laura (Sally Hawkins), a colorfully dressed, cheery woman who does not hide that she is more excited to care for Piper than Andy, who is determined to protect his sister. She is also caring for Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips in his feature film debut), who acts strange. Will Andy be able to continue shielding Piper from seeing the ugly side of life?
Andy anchors the movie. Even though he is about to become an adult, he is still a kid on the eve of being in a grown man’s body, and his journey is a harrowing one. He is so busy trying to take care of Piper that he never considers taking care of himself, and no one else is looking out for him. He shoulders the burden of a family history of abuse that is not for him to own, but the system only places on his shoulders. Despite receiving no help and receives the brunt of suspicions, Andy has a resolute sense of self rooted in the identity of his little sister: he would never hurt a person, and he never wants her to know how awful the world is. Barratt is a nuanced actor who balances how precarious Andy’s internal life is. He could lose his mind and withdraw, and no one would blame him after all the trauma that he went through. He could lose control, and it would be a human, not a monstrous reaction. He could shut himself off from caring because it hurts too much and even Piper may not immediately notice because Laura is such an involved caretaker
Hawkins always delivers a perfect performance, but she rarely plays a villain on film, which is too pat a characterization for Laura though the label fits. Combine the protagonist from “Happy-Go-Lucky” (2008) with the protagonist’s obsession with water in “The Shape of Water” (2017) then make her sinister. Laura is a terrifying figure because though she is odd, she seems safe. “Bring Her Back” often feels like a retelling of “Hansel and Gretel” because there are so many red flags, but she is just appealing and vulnerable enough not to seem like a predator even when she is inappropriate. One takeaway lesson: if a person accuses you of doing something bad that they did to you like violate your privacy, but excuse it when they do it, that person is dangerous. Her vast experience with children makes her a chilling, effective manipulator, and poor Andy, who is desperate for some guidance through dealing with the multiple burdens of grief, abuse and caretaking, naturally leans on Laura for support as a safe adult.
One red flag that only gets bigger as “Bring Her Back” unfolds is Oliver. Oliver has a strange mark under his right eye like a bruise or birthmark. Oliver interacts with people, animals and objects as if he does not know how to do so. He is very drawn to the empty pool and the locked shed. Oliver does not seem to respond to pain in a normal way. He is not a zombie. The Philippou brothers and cowriter Bill Hinzman, the original team that worked on “Talk to Me” (2022) minus Daley Pearson who came up with the story in their first film, create a new supernatural mythology with found footage elements without fully explaining the logistics. My kingdom for someone revealing what language is spoken in the opening scene. The mythology is fresh and disturbing though familiar, which means that watching “Bring Her Back” means waiting for the other shoe to drop and knowing the goal. Laura’s daughter, Cathy (Mischa Heywood), died, and Laura never got over it, which means that the attention that Laura is showing Piper is not for Piper’s sake.
If “Bring Her Back” has a flaw, it does not spend enough time focusing on Piper as an individual as opposed to how people see her except at the bookends of the film. Piper has a vision disability. She cannot see things clearly, just light and vague shapes, but not details. Andy sees her incorrectly as someone that everyone loves, but she experiences the world differently. She does not have friends and gets ridiculed for her disability. At the end, she is shown as part of a community and accepted, which additionally explains why she does not think her home is strange. The rest of her life got better, and she goes through an off-screen transformation into a confident little girl who is no longer ashamed of her disability. Waiting until the end packs more punch in the denouement, and it cushions the blow of how she could miss her brother’s crisis so earlier glimpses into her personal development could have grounded the story.
The Philippou brothers visually depict “Bring Her Back” through the way that Piper sees the world. They start with showing the surrounding world out of focus before revealing more detail. The last scene is at night and clear thus signifying that Piper has no more illusions about the world but metaphorically sees it accurately. Unlike a lot of filmmakers, the Philippou brothers do not use out of focus shots to shortchange the audience on seeing everything, but to put moviegoers in the children’s shoes of seeing everything, but without understanding. The Philippou brothers really get love, grief, poisonous psychological neglect of children and division through misunderstanding, which makes their work so much more powerful than the average horror film, hell, the average film.
If you are looking for unflinching horror and a fresh new invented mythology, “Bring Her Back” has got you. Even the most hardened movie goer will find it difficult to not look away. If you are looking for well-developed characters, “Bring Her Back” is for you. If you are looking for a heartbreaking story that works without the horror, “Bring Her Back” nails it. If it has one flaw, it is somewhat predictable and rushed to get to the bonkers part, but people running out of theater early clutching their pearls will not remember that.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
It is unclear where the ritual originated. Laura kidnapped Oliver and got him possessed with something that has telekinetic powers. She calls it an angel, but there is no definitive identifier supporting or disabusing her notion. That power is bound in a circle, and if Oliver leaves the circle, he will not be possessed. If Laura had succeeded, she would have killed Piper in the same way that Cathy died. Oliver would then eat Piper’s face then Cathy would be resurrected or something to that effect. Maybe put Cathy’s soul in Piper’s body. To resurrect one person, it technically takes the sacrifice of two people although maybe if the ritual was completed, Oliver would have returned to his body. The bird thing did not make sense.
Laura killed two people and hurt two children to fail, and she is so gone that she thinks that she could still live a full life with Cathy 2.0 after all that mess. Points go to social worker Wendy (Sally-Anne Upton) who figured out her former co-worker went off the deep end and tried to get Andy out of there. She was like, “We can’t save your sister if we’re dead.” Upton brings some much-needed humor to a bleak scenario.
Also, it is worth noting that it is unclear whether it is a side effect of the ritual or independent, but the dad’s ghost appeared and warned Andy that Laura was going to try and kill Piper. It is also possible that Andy’s subconscious manifested a ghost to articulate his fears, but “Bring Her Back” is a supernatural movie. Souls linger in this world. POS dad really did love Piper.
