A24: Bring Her Back (2025) - Reviewed

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Images courtesy of A24

Australian twin Youtubers turned feature filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou, known for their webseries RackaRacka before making their 2023 horror debut with the demonic possession horror film Talk to Me, made a considerable mark on the A24 brand when the studio acquired their Causeway Films production and it quickly became the company’s biggest horror moneymaker to date.  Made for around $4.5 million, it took in $92 million and represented the most strikingly original Australian horror offering since The Babadook (also produced by Causeway) or Relic and inevitable anticipation began around whatever the RackaRacka boys would do next.  While the A24 brand was busily remastering and rereleasing many of the films across the IMAX format in 2025 including but not limited to Spring Breakers and of course Talk to Me in January, Danny and Michael Philippou cooked up a less successful but no less brutal and unforgiving star-powered horror vehicle in May of that year with equally demonic and occult horror shocker Bring Her Back.

 
Co-authored by Bill Hinzman of Talk to Me and starring Responsible Child actor Billy Barratt, Bring Her Back zeroes in on young adult Andy (Billy Barratt) and his half-blind stepsister Piper (Sora Wong) who are reeling from the death of their cancer-stricken father.  Orphaned, they’re sent to live with a former counselor named Laura (Sally Hawkins) who is also caring for a mute young boy named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) she claims stopped talking following his sister Cathy’s death.  Unnerved by his outward appearance and bizarre antisocial behavior, the situation is further complicated by the eccentric Laura’s doting on and favoritism of Oliver who starts violently acting out.  Unbeknownst to Andy and Piper, something else more in line with the occult is afoot possibly pointing towards demonic rituals and hints of witchcraft regarding Oliver’s identity and perhaps even more so with his caregiver Laura’s increasingly peculiar and borderline sociopathic behavior.

 
Talk to Me with the star power, volume and mean streak cranked up including scenes of inanimate objects that should never be consumed (not even on My Strange Addiction), disturbing use of cinema verite videotaped footage and a completely terrifying Sally Hawkins in her most ferocious role yet in the other menacing witchy performance of the year not by Amy Madigan, Bring Her Back isn’t a horror movie so much as it is a steel toed kick in the teeth.  Angry and menacing in that Ari Aster way with the distinctly South Australian dialect and setting, aided by a mournful score by Talk to Me composer Cornel Wilczek and switching from the scope widescreen of Talk to Me for a more stately Univisium 2.00:1 ratio again by the prior film’s cinematographer Aaron McLisky, the feel of the film is a bit like being in a fight and left for dead in the pouring rain. 

 
Upping the ante in terms of grisliness thanks to some remarkable makeup effects work and stunts involving a kitchen knife and wooden countertops, part of the film’s staying power stems from the performances including Sora Wong who won the part of the stepsister via Facebook casting calls.  Billy Barratt and Jonah Wren Phillips shoulder a lot of heavy lifting as the principal male characters of this strangely interdimensional saga with Phillips asked to go places few if any other child actors have been tasked with besides maybe Linda Blair.  Dancing across the stage in her golden shoes and bright red dress acting wise unquestionably is the great Sally Hawkins who I’m convinced by now can do anything and is not afraid of any challenges presented by a role.  Someone you could see being a magnanimous maternal friend who in actuality is secretly preying on you, Hawkins believably creates an air of tension and a threatening presence without leaning too heavily into the incredulous or outright witchy.  That she has a horror heavy role under her belt now is a further testament to her totally confident fearlessness as an actress, the boldest of her kind since Charlotte Gainsbourg or Emily Watson.

 
Budgeted considerably higher than Talk to Me but sadly far less successful, the $15 million movie mostly fared well with critics and audiences but nevertheless took in a paltry $39 million far below the expectations and profit margins of the Philippou’s first offering.  Considered by genre fans to be the weaker yet more polished film of the two, Bring Her Back was something of a disappointment for followers but nevertheless was regarded as a triumph for Sally Hawkins.  Detractors took umbrage with the recent string of aggressively over-the-top ultraviolence that again seemed to stem in the wake of Hereditary and Midsommar but enough praise was still heaped on Hawkins that it’s kind of a fifty-fifty for many.  Nevertheless an effective A24 acquisition that didn’t quite strike the same nerves Talk to Me did for most people, Bring Her Back from its unsettling Dolby Atmos soundscape to its crisp but sometimes nebulous camerawork and committed performances from pretty much all involved still leaves cuts and bruises on those encountering it in a dark and terrifyingly loud theater.  No not as strong as their predecessor but still rough enough you might come away needing some bandages.

--Andrew Kotwicki