Film: Bring her back
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Mischa Heywood, Stephen Phillips, Kathryn Adams
Director: Michael Philippou, Danny Philippou
Rating: 3 stars
Runtime: 104 min.

Australian Directors, brothers, Danny and Michael Philippou follow up their surprise hit Talk To Me with the blisteringly violent and chilling “Bring her Back.”  This film was highly anticipated and delivers spine-chilling thrills as expected but it is not as focused as their debut work. This film dwells on parental grief and the harrowing madness it unleashes as a consequence. The crazed lunacy of a single parent trying to resurrect her dead daughter by offering a foster child as a medium seems a bit over the top, though.

Andy (Billy Barratt), not yet 18, and a blind Piper (Sora Wong), a couple of years younger, are left orphaned when they find the body of their father, lifeless, on the floor of the shower. Andy wants to stay and take care of his younger sister until he can apply for custody, but the system does not allow him and sends them off into foster care. Wendy (Sally-Anne Upton) places them in the care of Laura (Sally Hawkins), a former social worker herself who is supposedly recovering from her daughter’s tragic death. When the two join Laura, they encounter a troubled child, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who is under Laura’s care, who doesn’t seem able to communicate and exhibits odd behaviour. Something seems off but Andy is not in a position to call it out…before it gets too late. The death of loved ones derails normalcy, plunging the newly formed family into different variations of terror and despair.

Scriptwriters Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman make the strange behaviour patterns ensuing here impinge on psychological trauma. The gruesome events that follow the brother-sister duo’s arrival at the foster home are quite unpredictable. A grainy video grab plays multiple times throughout the film, in an effort to connect what is transpiring to some strange cult ritual. There’s plenty of gore and jump scares to sit through. The freakish storyline calls out for an overdose of bloody violence that will make you squirm in your seats. Horror tropes like demonic possession, grief-induced psychosis, and a surfeit of gut-wrenching gore abound.