After the father dies, the two siblings must stay at a foster home, and the woman there seems nice. But it turns out she’s batshit crazy.
Bring Her Back is directed by the Philippou brothers, who also directed the pretty awesome horror movie Talk to Me. And again, they’ve made an excellent horror movie with Bring Her Back, but it’s much darker and more twisted than Talk to Me.
When their father dies, the older brother — who is about to turn 18 — must live with his younger sister at a foster home. Well, she’s actually his half-sister, and she’s blind. The older brother didn’t have an easy upbringing, and he has a bit of a bad reputation after some incidents in his life.
The woman who takes them in also carries a secret, and that secret is pretty twisted and sick. She lost her marbles after her daughter died, and when the two siblings come to live with her, there’s already a child there who looks like absolute shit. Then the woman starts playing mind games with the siblings, and she turns on the older brother because she’s interested in his sister, so he stands in her way. What is this woman planning to do with his sister?
As I mentioned, I enjoyed Talk to Me, and I enjoyed Bring Her Back. But these two movies are completely different, because Talk to Me feels like a Hollywood production, while Bring Her Back is a movie more for adults, and it’s much grittier. It doesn’t ooze Hollywood the way Talk to Me does.
The universe in Bring Her Back is pretty small, with few characters. That makes the movie experience more intimate and intense, especially because of the excellent acting by Sally Hawkins. She’s great in this role. She seems like a nice woman for a few minutes, but then you notice how creepy and weird she really is. Just by saying a few words, she pushes the older brother to do things he refuses to do — because he’s not as insane as she is.
The scene at the funeral, when she pushes him to kiss his dead father on the lips, is uncomfortable, and it should tell you what kind of movie and what kind of woman this is.
The movie also has some gory, intense scenes with the young boy, who is like a walking demon from hell. He’ll be missing a lot of his teeth during the runtime. He’s a creepy bastard — that bastard of a toothless bastard!
Bring Her Back is a dark and twisted movie for grown-ups who can relate to the woman’s insanity, and who also appreciate a dark and unexpected ending, as well as intense atmosphere and great acting. This is maybe the best horror movie of 2025, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the Philippou brothers will do next.