July 17, 2025
17 year-old Andy (Billy Barratt) was a good elder brother to his visually-impaired step-sister Piper (Sora Wong). When their father suddenly died, they had to be taken to stay with a foster parent. They were assigned to veteran counselor Laura (Sally Hawkins) to take care of them. Laura seemed friendly even as she was still mourning the death of her blind daughter Cathy (Mischa Heywood) and was also raising a deaf-mute boy Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips).
In the last decade or so, Australian horror movies have been picking up momentum, and being appreciated all over the world for its unusual take on the usual horror tropes. The first Australian horror I've seen was of the disturbing, psychological kind. "Dead Calm" (1989), starring Sam Neill with pre-famous Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane, was about a couple sailing on their yacht who picked up a marooned stranger who may be a killer .
However, the current attention with Australian horror was revived with "The Babadook" (2014), about a widow raising her disturbed young son, who believed the monster in his bedtime storybook is alive. Following that, there was "Killing Ground" (2016) about a family vacation gone grisly wrong, "Hounds of Love" (2016) about a couple on a serial killing spree, and the depressing "Relic" (2020) about an elderly widow dealing with dementia.
In 2022, twin brothers and YouTubers Danny and Michael Philippou made their directorial debut with "Talk to Me." This was about a group of teenagers playing with a ceramic hand, which allowed the holder to communicate and be possessed by spirits. "Talk to Me" was co-produced by Causeway Films, which also produced "The Babadook." This film now ranks among the biggest worldwide box-office hit films distributed by A24.
"Bring Her Back" is the much-anticipated second film of the Philippou twins, also co-produced by Causeway Films and distributed by A24. The centerpiece of its horror is the completely unhinged performance of Sally Hawkins as Laura, a woman driven to murderous psychosis by the death of her daughter. From the start, Laura exuded an air of weirdness, which Hawkins expertly escalated into full psycho-biddy mayhem with measured skill.
Barratt's Andy was abused and gaslighted, but he would still do what he can to protect his sister. Wong, really visually- impaired with her inborn coloboma and microphthalmia, was naturally vulnerable in her film debut. Wren Phillips's Ollie had the most disgusting scenes here, including a knife-chewing stunt sure to make you flinch. Child abuse is true horror, never easy to swallow, especially now when disturbingly magnified on the big screen like this. 7/10