Bring Her Back isn’t just another dark horror film, it’s a pit of despair with no rope to climb out.
Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou, this is a horror experience that doesn’t entertain so much as it assaults. From the first uneasy moments to its soul-splintering finale, it drags you by the hand into absolute darkness and never once pretends there’s light at the end.
I walked out of this movie feeling devastated and sad, like I needed therapy and a very long shower.
The story centers on a brother and sister who are placed in foster care and move into a remote home, only to discover their new guardian, played with chilling brilliance by Sally Hawkins, is out of her goddamn mind.
She’s involved in some seriously evil witchcraft and what unfolds is a nightmare about grief and the horrific cost of trying to undo death as she is going through a twisted process to bring her dead daughter back to life, and what follows is so grotesque and hopeless.
Let’s be clear, this movie is well-crafted. The Philippou brothers have a sharp eye and a knack for tension and telling horror stories. This one was seriously suffocating, it was too damn bleak, and unnecessarily soul crushing for me. There are moments that felt mean-spirited and cruel, and it was just just so hard to get through.
Hawkins gives a masterclass performance in quiet, maternal dread. She’s terrifying not because she rages, but because she calmly, lovingly leads children into hellish ruin. It’s the kind of performance that makes your stomach knot. The film is effective in every technical sense, but that’s also what makes it so hard to endure.
There’s no humor, no relief, no levity no hope. Nothing to ease the horrific madness of it all. It just gets darker and darker as it drags you deeper and deeper into hell.
The body horror is shocking, but not just because of the visuals. It’s the fact that the violence is inflicted on children. One in particular is only ten years old! And not in a cheap shock-value way, this is slow, methodical, and cruel. It doesn’t feel like horror for catharsis; it feels like horror for punishment.
Watching Bring Her Back didn’t feel like entertainment. It’s not that I was scared, it’s that it was comeletely devestating.
I’ve seen countless horror films, and I usually love getting my mind messed with, but this one didn’t just mess with me, it made me feel sick. If you’ve ever lost someone close to you, there are scenes in this film that will gut you in ways you’re not prepared for, and once it starts tearing into you, it doesn’t stop.
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the movie is meant to be this nihilistic. Maybe it’s making a statement about grief, trauma, and how trying to reverse death can make monsters out of the well-meaning.
But just because something is effective doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable. This is a very well made film. It is also joyless, cruel, and hollow. It’s a well-executed punch to the soul that punches you from beginning to end. This movie beat the hell out of me!
I won’t call Bring Her Back a bad film. It’s not. It’s one of the most extreme examinations of loss and suffering I’ve seen in horror. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone I know because I want to keep my friends and a movie like this would destroy many of them.
Bring Her Back is a slow burial that is insanely jacked up and there is no redeeming value to the story. If that sounds like your kind of horror, good luck!
