Bring Her Back
Hey everyone, and welcome. Today, we will be talking about the film Bring Her Back. Spoilers ahead, so you are warned. Fun Fact: In the scenes with Oliver biting the counter and chewing on the knife, Director Danny actually chewed on a knife and bit a counter to help replicate the noise, but the table Oliver bit was actually made of chocolate. This film came out in 2025 and stars Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, and Sara Wong, and was directed by Danny and Michael Philippou. So without further ado, let's get right into it.
Bring Her Back follows siblings, Andy and Piper, who are put into foster care after their father dies. They end up in the care of Laura, whose daughter died, and now she is fostering the two, as well as a boy named Oliver. Andy soon finds out that Laura has malicious intentions, and he must try and stop her and save his sister.
Bring Her Back is a horror movie dealing with grief, cults, and possession. It has similar vibes to The Haunting in Connecticut, Hereditary, or Talk to Me.
I watched Talk to Me by Danny and Michael and was pleasantly surprised, so when this movie was being marketed, I knew I had to watch it. The trailers didn't give too much away, but I could tell it would be just as creepy. I wondered if the film would tie back to Talk to Me, which it did not, but there was a cool line in the movie where they say Talk to Me, which may seem normal until you realize that's the name of the brother’s debut film. The film introduces a cult at the beginning, which may seem confusing at first, but by the end of the movie, its significance will become clear.
Bring Her Back is a horror movie that relies more on making the viewer uncomfortable than presenting all these jump scares. Don't get me wrong, I love some jump scares, but this film shows all this unsettling stuff, and it really got under my skin and made me feel uncomfortable and scared. Sally Hawkins really lent to this because she seemed so nice, but she really wasn't, which you learn as the film goes on. I think something that adds to it is the fact that she's doing all this weird stuff, and I couldn't figure out why. She is very attentive to Piper, she hides Oliver in a room most of the time, and with Andy, she seems to hate him and starts doing things to prove that he is not mentally well and should never be the guardian of his sister. I love how the film shows you the small things she does that would have someone believe Andy is the crazy one if they were viewing this situation from the outside, but since we are on the inside, we know she's insane. Oliver lends to this as well because something is clearly wrong, and it's some kind of possession that we learn is from the cult shown at the beginning of the film. Even with Oliver doing all this weird stuff, you know he's a victim, but you just don't know what she really did to him to make him act this way. I think all the uncertainty really got under my skin because I was always wondering what was going on and how this crazy lady was putting all these kids' lives at risk.
We come to find out that Laura wants to put her daughter's soul in Piper's, which would be way easier with Andy not around, and while she preps for this, she tries to keep Oliver under control. She almost gets away with it, but Piper is able to fight her way out and survive. Before this, Andy almost unravels her plans when he involves the social worker, who sees what has happened to Oliver and almost escapes, but Laura runs her and Andy over with a car. Andy survives, but she drowns him in hopes of speeding up the process to change the bodies with Piper. She almost succeeds until she had a moment where she realized her grief is causing so much pain for other people and decided to kill herself to be with her daughter which i thought was a fitting end considering her life would’ve been over if she got caught and too be honest she didn’t deserve to live after what she did.
Jonah Wren Phillips was so good as Oliver. He is silent throughout the movie, but he is just so creepy and unsettling. I couldn't tell what was wrong with him, but I just knew something was off, and the more of the film I saw, the worse he seemed to get. I'm not the biggest fan of gore, and the scene where she was chewing the knife caught me so off guard, partly because chewing a knife is crazy and unexpected, but also I thought he would stab Andy, not cause so much damage to himself. Later, he is seen biting off chunks of a counter, which was also unsettling because you see how hungry he is, and you wonder what's next. Well, next was human flesh, and he bites off some of Laura's and eventually some of his own, and he eats it like it's a normal snack. Most of the bloody scenes were with him or caused by him, which did make me cover my eyes for a second because it was just a bit extreme. It was sad to see how once he was pulled out of the circle, he started acting like himself, and we realized whoever the kids see inside of the circle is not the actual Oliver, and we come to find out he is actually not named Oliver and is a missing child she kidnapped named Connor. It was so fascinating to see Oliver, and I was equally interested to know who he was and what Laura was doing to him.
Piper may have had a visual impairment, but don't mistake that for her being weak. I think in media they tend to show people with disabilities as weak, and then in horror movies the younger siblings will always do stuff that's so annoying and puts them in danger, and I think Piper didn't fit into any of these characters. She deals with her grief well, and while Laura manipulates her, we see how that doesn't immediately make her want to be on her side, which makes Laura try harder. I love how once she finds out that Andy is dead, she doesn't have a breakdown but realizes she's in danger and tries to escape. In my head, when she calls Laura mom in the end, she does this because she knows Laura longs for her daughter back, and this will give her a moment to escape, and it does while also making Laura second-guess her decisions. Piper was such a badass, and I loved her character and was very impressed that this was Sara Wong’s first role.
The film mostly takes place at a secluded house, which starts to feel like a prison. I think this was a great location to have the film take place since people wouldn’t hear much of what was going on and wouldn’t see the weird stuff Laura was doing. In the cult film, we see how leaving this circle makes whatever demon is inside the person leave, so having this space lets her draw the circle large to avoid that. Having the film primarily set in this one place really increased the tension and had me wondering if all three kids would make it out.
My favorite part of the film is how Andy fought so hard to protect his sister. He was willing to sacrifice everything to ensure her safety, which he did, and I thought he was pretty smart. One thing I hate in horror films is when it doesn't feel like the characters learn anything throughout the course of the film. With Andy, he is already on edge, and he slowly starts to see how weird Laura is and how she takes what he says and manipulates it to get more on Piper's good side and make him seem crazy. Andy sees how good she is at manipulating people, in this case, she uses their dad’s death as a way to insert herself. She almost gets away with her plan, but he realizes what she’s doing and tries to stop her. I'm so glad the social worker believes him once she sees evidence, but I was so sad that Laura ends up killing them both, but Andy's death was so brutal because she drowns him, which is crazy since that's how her daughter died. While on the way to confront Laura with help, he records a voicemail to Piper explaining his history with his dad and how he always tried to protect her and how much he loves her, and I honestly thought he would make it out alive. It's sad that he gets killed, but I think what's sadder is watching Piper listen to the voicemail crying, which made me cry because they didn't deserve this at all. I can't think of the last time a horror film made me cry, cause while I was happy that Piper made it out alive, Andy lost his life trying to get her out, and even though he did protect her, he couldn't protect himself. These kids were already grieving, and Laura preyed on that grief to use them to try and bring her daughter back with the knowledge she learned from this cult, as well as kidnapping another child. Andy was a great protagonist because he was right but adults questioned his credibility because of something he did as a child and used that one thing to say he was abusive when in reality it was an isolated incident of a kid lashing out which if they looked more into it, they would know its from the abuse that their dad put on Andy. Billy Barratt did so good i the role and really had you rooting for Andy.
Bring Her Back is a great follow-up to Talk to Me. Just like that movie, this one will have you feeling deeply unsettled but fully invested. The cast was great, and by the end of the film, I was an emotional wreck and tense.
