Youtube native brother’s Michael and Danny Phillippou raise the standards for the horror genre with their follow up to Talk to Me
What happens when Sally Hawkins trades the Brown Family for fostered kids, marmalade sandwiches for evil spirits and an endearing smile for crippling grief? Danny and Michael Philippou have the answer, and it is not pleasant.
I could never have imagined that when watching Paddington for the first time, I would ever be traumatised at the look of Sally Hawkins, but alas. I would not trust her with any bears or humans from this point onwards.
It’s no surprise that they made an actor who usually makes you feel warm instead makes you feel petrified when they are on screen. Their last outing, Talk To Me, another supernatural look at grief, had a plethora of horrifying and squeamish scenes for you to wince at.
However, in comparison to their sophomore release, Bring Her Back, Talk To Me is closer to Paddington than it is to its counterpart.
Bring Her Back rattled me to the core. It touches on the same themes of grief and trauma, but through the bleakest lens you could find. It could quite possibly be the worst 104 minutes of my life.
It is a turbulent nightmare. It’s the kind of twisted film where by the halfway point, you will have your head in your hands, desperate for the credits to start rolling.
It is truly a horrible experience. Intentionally, of course. At times it pushes the boundaries of being too much to stomach, but that’s what the best horrors do, and this is one of them.
This waking nightmare starts with the death of Piper (Sora Wong) and her brother Andy’s (Billy Barratt) father and them being placed into the hands of a grieving foster mum, Laura (The unhinged Sally Hawkins) and her other foster child, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who is first seen topless in an empty pool holding a cat.
Things seem normal, bar the unsettling nature of Oliver. Despite seeming dismissive of Andy, Laura seems like a loving, if not overstepping, mum to the siblings. But the sinister undertones are ever-present, especially in her coddling towards Piper.
You know sooner or later the mask will slip and the ticking time bomb will explode, but no amount of preparation will be enough for what is about to transpire.
From the moment they get to Laura’s house, you are left on edge. They have you in a constant state of distress as you wait for them to reveal what horrors they have in store. Whether that’s gore, which would make Jigsaw applaud or cold-hearted manipulation that Hannibal Lecter would appreciate, you will find yourself feeling many emotions, and none of them positive.
It is relentless. Each time you think you’ve seen the pinnacle of twisted imagery, it is one-upped with a sequence even more grotesque. It makes you wonder how a human could even conjure up such ideas and not be locked up because ofthem.
The story is equal to match. It could very easily have been style over substance, but as much as the gore and scary parts are fantastic, its melancholy and heartbreaking story packs just as much of a punch. Largely due to the fantastic performances from the cast, especially newcomer Sora Wong.
It may very well be too much for a lot of people from all perspectives. The outlook on grief may be too demoralising, and the gore may be too much to stomach. It is not for the faint-hearted, and if blood leaves you queasy, I would give it a miss. But if any film is supposed to leave you traumatised, it’s a horror film.
I will never be able to watch this again, and that is the biggest compliment I can give it. I will wait with bated breath for the Australian duo’s next outing.
- Bring Her Back is free to watch on Sky Cinema
