‘Bring Her Back’ (2025) Review – The Philippou Brothers’ Nightmarish New Vision of Grief and Resurrection
With ‘Bring Her Back,’ Danny and Michael Philippou (formerly known as their YouTube name RackaRacka) return with a sophomore horror feature that is perhaps bloodier, bolder, and more emotionally brutal than their breakout ‘Talk to Me.’ A study in grief, psychological manipulation, and spectral resurrection, ‘Bring Her Back’ burrows deep into the trauma of parenthood and sibling loyalty, marrying body horror with emotional devastation. If ‘Talk to Me’ introduced them as rising stars of genre cinema, ‘Bring Her Back’ confirms their status as new horror auteurs, right alongside big names like Ari Aster and Oz Perkins.
It’s still hard to believe that the same creators who gave the world “Harry Potter vs. Star Wars” on YouTube are now crafting some of the most harrowing genre films of the decade. But the Philippou brothers, now 32 and hailing from Adelaide, Australia, have fully crossed over from viral chaos to cinematic terror.
‘Bring Her Back’ continues their collaboration with Causeway Films (the same team behind ‘The Babadook’) and deepens the themes they began to explore in ‘Talk to Me’: loss, exploitation, and the malleability of reality when pain becomes unbearable. While their debut explored teen social rituals and ghostly possession through a haunted ceramic hand, ‘Bring Her Back’ dials up the stakes by placing children into the care of someone far more terrifying: a grieving mother who cannot let go of her dead daughter.
The result is a frenetic, often disorienting descent into psychological torment. Though the film occasionally stumbles under the weight of its own ambitions, its relentless energy, stylistic flair, and heartbreaking performances make for an unforgettable experience.
The story begins in tragedy: Andy (Billy Barratt) and his visually impaired younger step-sister Piper (Sora Wong) discover their father dead in the shower, an early trauma that sets the film’s tone of suffocating dread. Orphaned and on the brink of separation, they’re placed in the care of Laura (Sally Hawkins), a former social worker whose daughter Cathy died under mysterious circumstances.
At first, Laura seems kind, if a bit eccentric. Her home is cozy but sterile, and her living son Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) is mostly mute, communicating in cryptic glances and aggressive outbursts. But slowly, a deeper rot becomes visible. Laura’s desire to “reunite” with her lost daughter is not just metaphorical, she’s preparing a resurrection ritual that involves Piper as a spiritual conduit.
This premise allows the Philippous to combine domestic horror, occult mythology, and a slow-burning thriller structure. From the start, we’re unsure what’s real. Is Andy unraveling due to grief, or is something more insidious going on? Is Laura grieving, or possessed by her grief? Is Piper truly special, or simply caught in a web of adult dysfunction?
Grief as Gaslight: Sally Hawkins Goes Full Psycho-Biddy
Sally Hawkins gives a career-redefining performance as Laura, blending maternal warmth and skin-crawling menace in equal measure. Best known for tender roles in films like ‘Paddington’ and ‘The Shape of Water,’ Hawkins weaponizes her vulnerability here. She’s not a typical horror villain, she’s a woman broken open by grief, her nurturing instincts turned parasitic.
The performance pays homage to the “psycho-biddy” sub-genre—films like ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’ and ‘Carrie,’ while also making Laura feel frighteningly modern. Her gaslighting of Andy, including setting him up to appear unstable to their social worker, Wendy (Sally-Anne Upton), is as psychologically disturbing as any supernatural sequence. In one quietly horrifying moment, Laura calmly tells Piper, “Your brother is sick. But I’ll take care of you. Just like I did, Cathy.”
It’s that duality, as motherly savior and captor, that makes Hawkins’ performance so unforgettable. Critics have rightly singled her out, with Rolling Stone noting that her portrayal “draws the film’s most profound scares.” Barratt and Wong, meanwhile, offer soulful counterpoints. Barratt’s Andy is all jagged emotion, trying to protect Piper while falling apart himself. Wong brings incredible presence to Piper, whose blindness doesn’t prevent her from seeing more clearly than most. Together, they make an empathetic sibling duo worth rooting for.
If ‘Talk to Me’ was praised for its stripped-down storytelling and tight pacing, ‘Bring Her Back’ is the more ambitious, occasionally more chaotic sibling. At 108 minutes, the film teeters on being overstuffed. Flashbacks, hallucinations, VHS footage of cult rituals, and repeated motifs of insects and blood-soaked porcelain dolls crowd the frame.
Some of these additions work; the recurring VHS tape of an overseas resurrection ritual is genuinely creepy, its grainy visuals invoking ‘The Ring’ or ‘The Blair Witch Project’. But it also becomes repetitive and over-explained. As critic Maria Castillo noted, “the VHS segments feel like an unnecessary scare tactic,” particularly when the emotional horror already hits so hard.
Still, even when the script wobbles, the Philippous keep you watching. Their camera, aided by ‘Talk to Me’ cinematographer Aaron McLisky, is always in motion, twisting through hallways, hovering inches from a tear-streaked face, or slamming into action when violence erupts. The practical effects are deeply upsetting, especially during a centerpiece scene involving a kitchen knife, a locked door, and a horrifying decision no teenager should ever face.
And though the film juggles a lot, its core is solid: a desperate young man trying to save his sister from a woman who claims to love her.
Their signature blend of Gen-Z pacing, YouTube-era editing flair, and deep thematic focus on trauma gives ‘Bring Her Back’ its identity. The film is as much about the failures of the foster care system and the lasting impact of unresolved grief as it is about demonic rituals or hauntings.
Audiences seem to agree: CinemaScore gave it a B+, with viewers praising the lead performances and practical effects. Critics are more divided, some citing its logical muddiness, others its audacity, but few deny the raw power behind it.
It may not be as elegantly terrifying as ‘Talk to Me,’ but ‘Bring Her Back’ proves that the Philippous are not one-hit wonders. They’re evolving, experimenting, and horrifying in new ways, sometimes messily, but always memorably.
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