Bring Her Back - Movie Review

The Movie: Bring Her Back

The Directors: Danny and Michael Philippou

The Cast: Sally Hawkins, Billy Barrat, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton

The Story: A brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother.

The Rating: 8 / 10

The Review:

There's already been several great horror movies this year and, if this movie is any indication, that won't be slowing down any time soon. The first two words that came to mind when forming my initial thoughts on the film were intense and disturbing and holy cow it was a lot of that. I'm still thinking about a certain scene involving a kitchen knife and no I'm not going to explain, you need to see it for yourself.

When I was leaving the theater with a couple friends of mine, we all pondered what might be going on inside the heads of both Danny and Michael Philippou, who directed the movie together as well as Talk to Me, which was one of last year's best horror movies. The things these guys are coming up with and putting on screen, along with co-writer Bill Hinzman, are pretty wild, even for someone who has seen so many horror movies, I've been a little afraid of being desensitized to this kind of stuff and yet here they come taking things to yet another level.

What I've learned from watching this movie is to never underestimate the horror genre. Sure, there are plenty of retreads and stories that miss the mark for whatever reason but, for the most part, they are all still fairly entertaining. Then you get a movie like this one and it not only raises the bar for what can be put on screen but it also tells a very compelling and dramatic story. It's a little hard to describe exactly what this movie is within the horror genre, it's mostly a psychological thriller with a little bit of demonic possession type stuff going on.

As I think about it, that's really why this movie is so horrifying and disturbing. The demon stuff, which should be the focal of the horror, takes a back seat to the depraities of humanity and to what lengths a person, or people, will go to get what they want. I left that intentionally vague so not to give away certain plot points and I'm sure you understand what I mean. At the forefront of this is Sally Hawkins who was absolutely perfect for the role she plays and also because horror fans will know her very well from her stunning performance in Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water.

We also get to see great work from both Billy Barratt and Sora Wong who makes her feature film debut with this role. The pair play half brother and sister and the connection they have on screen as siblings is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking which adds a lot of emotion to the story as well. I would to also mention that Sora, in real life, was born with coloboma and microphthalmia and, while I'm not going to pretend to know what those two words mean, what I do know is that she is visually impaired which made her the perfect choice to take on the role of Piper who is a visually impaired character.

This added so much authenticity to the story and really allows the audience to believe a lot of the things that Piper went through within that context. There's so many types of fear layered on top of each other as the story unfolds and I'm not talking jump scares, although there are a few, it's more about that unnerving feeling that is just beneath the surface but you can't shake it and it builds and builds while you fall deeper into the trappings of what the creative team has in store. Every moment of the movie is filled with that dreadful feeling and, for me, that's why it was so effective. Bring Her Back is truly top shelf horror and is a movie experience that you do not want to miss.