WHAT’S IT ABOUT
A brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
Danny and Michael Philippou brothers, who were a hit with “Talk to Me,” now have another film, “Bring Her Back,” a horror one, in which they try to mix sad scenes with horror. It does not gel as well as their other film, however. Andy (Billy Barratt) and his step-sister Piper (Sora Wong) live with their father. Piper is visually impaired – she can only see colors and large shapes. Andy looks after her and shields her from mean kids at school. They even share a secret code word in case Piper wishes to know something for certain. They come home one day to discover their dad dead on the bathroom floor. The movie shows his naked body, which appears inappropriate and dirty. We learn that their dad was mean to them, especially to Andy. Since Andy is still under 18, the two kids must be placed in foster care. The social worker insists that they be separated, but Andy refuses to leave Piper. He has only three months to wait until he is 18 and can become her legal guardian. They end up with Laura (Sally Hawkins), a strange foster mother who lives in a big, messy house with a garden and a pool. Laura seems like a good person at first, but something is not right with her. She lets the kids have drinks with her and then gets angry over nothing. She obviously likes Piper more than Andy and makes Andy feel left out and nervous. There is also another foster kid, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who does not talk and is really strange. He stares at people in a strange way and seems to be injured. Laura’s real daughter drowned in their swimming pool, and she was half-blind like Piper. Laura has never recovered from the loss of her daughter. The movie shows how Laura is trying to fill the gap left by her late daughter with Piper. She becomes meaner and more dominating towards Andy. There are horrific nightmares that could be real, and Andy tries to get help, but people won’t listen to him. Oliver does some really disgusting and disturbing things that will make your stomach churn. There is one scene with him and a knife that is so bad that it is likely the only thing people will recall about this movie. The brothers clearly were trying to shock people, but it comes across as mean-spirited and unnecessary. Laura watches old video recordings of disturbing cult material and acts like they are family movies. She uses what she knows of Andy’s abuse history to confuse him and cause him to question himself. The worst part of “Bring Her Back” is that it is more concerned with being shocking than with delivering an interesting story. The characters are one-dimensional and have no depth. We’ve heard this story before – a horrendous foster parent, kids in danger, uncaring adults. Oliver is just there to get hurt and hurt other people. It’s not pleasant and doesn’t improve the story. The movie never really explains what Laura wants to do and why she believes it will work. Sally Hawkins acts really well as Laura. She makes her seem nice and scary at the same time. But even her great acting can’t improve the bad script. The movie tries to seem deep by using symbols like circles and running water. The father used to turn on the shower to mask the sounds when he hit Andy. Laura uses this information to make Andy and Piper fight. These tricks, nevertheless, come across as fake since the rest of the story is quite straightforward. “Talk to Me” worked since the kids seemed real and watched each other’s backs. They made poor decisions, but you understood why. Andy and Piper are isolated throughout “Bring Her Back.” There is no friendship or community to engage us further. The original film had rules for its supernatural proceedings. This one has no idea what is happening and why. The house looks great – big and modern, but falling apart, which matches how broken everyone feels. The movie does a good job of making you feel trapped and worried. Some scenes are filmed out of focus to show how Piper sees the world. This is a nice touch that helps us understand her better. The movie can’t decide if it’s going to be a study of grief or a twisty-turning ride. It tries to do both and fails at both. I don’t want to give anything away, but the ending is what you’ll expect. There’s a lot of violence, and the movie thinks that being gross is the same as being scary or impactful. You start to question why the foster care system can be so awful that someone like Laura looks after kids. The whole system starts to seem preposterous. “Bring Her Back” begins with genuine emotions of losing a person you love and having to contend with strangers. These moments work. But then it turns into a nasty horror film more concerned with making you feel bad than with making you think or feel. The movie has some great scares, and Sally Hawkins performs great. The house is amazing, and some of the camerawork is ingenious. But it wastes all of this on a story that doesn’t go anywhere new and treats its characters badly, Oliver especially. If you liked “Talk to Me,” you might not like this one. That movie had heart along with its frights. This one only has brutality. The Philippou brothers can create imagery that upsets and stays with you. They simply forgot that the best horror movies make you care about the people being threatened. When bad things occur to characters you do not know or even care about much, it is not nice to watch. “Bring Her Back” could have been a decent story about kids attempting to stick together after they lost everything they had. Instead, it is a tough, gloomy experience that mistakes shock for quality. Skip this one unless you just need to feel nauseous and bored. There are better horror movies that will scare you but won’t leave you yawning or wishing you hadn’t watched them.
OUR RATING – A CULT-ISH 3