Michael Philippou
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…it also shares some spiritual companionship to the family horrors of Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” and the opening of “Midsommar,” where a death of loved ones derail our protagonists’ normalcy and plunge them into a world of terror and despair.
Cut from the same cloth as occult family horrors like Hereditary and Sinister, Bring Her Back balances its foster family plot with blurry found footage mythology that gives way to a larger conspiracy.
Not since Ari Aster’s Hereditary have I seen a horror film tackle uncomfortable family dynamics so well…
The film especially feels like it pulls both in tone and tenor from A24 predecessor Hereditary (ironic, given how much Hereditary has borrowed from other films).
Ari Aster’s Hereditary chief among them.
Ever since Ari Aster’s Hereditary broke out as a mainstream hit, there has been a massive surge in indie horror movies that are thinly veiled metaphors for grief…
Although Bring Her Back is in some ways a spiritual sequel to Talk to Me, with both films exploring the way grief can incite drastic change, it couldn’t be more different tonally.
But if Talk To Me was quite a traditional horror movie, Bring Her Back perhaps goes too far for even most hardened horror fans…
In their breakthrough debut horror feature “Talk to Me,” Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou employed a haunted hand that became a party game for teenagers as a way to understand the debilitating grip of depression.
Given the dominant themes at play, it’s not surprising that Bring Her Back was written around the same time as Talk to Me.
There are clear thematic echoes here with Talk to Me, especially in how the Philippous explore the destructive consequences of unresolved grief.
Talk to Me has several memorable ones, but Bring Her Back dials it up to eleven.
…reminds a shadow or so of another A24 horror movie, Ari Aster’s “Midsommar,” in its chilling sequences of familial bodily maiming that become a motif that terrorizes the protagonists in the present.
…it also shares some spiritual companionship to the family horrors of Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” and the opening of “Midsommar,” where a death of loved ones derail our protagonists’ normalcy and plunge them into a world of terror and despair.
Danny and Michael Philippou are legit, and their success here following Talk To Me echoes Ari Aster doing Midsommar after Hereditary and Jordan Peele crafting Us as his follow-up to Get Out.
Horror and grief can be a provocative combination, as seen with David Cronenberg’s thoughts on the grieving process in The Shrouds.
I can count on one hand the horror films I’ve seen in a cinema, in the past two years, that did some active damage to me, where I couldn’t do anything but sit and feel deeply unwell after having seen them: Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms, David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, and now RackaRacka’s Bring Her Back.
(The contrast of maturity in “Bring Her Back” and David Cronenberg’s late period tour-de-force “The Shrouds” is stark.)
It's not quite as gore-soaked as, say, "Martyrs," but it has the same kind of attitude.
…channeling the existential nihilism of French New Extremity works like Martyrs to explore just how unhealthy it is to process death at such a surface level…
Cut from the same cloth as occult family horrors like Hereditary and Sinister, Bring Her Back balances its foster family plot with blurry found footage mythology that gives way to a larger conspiracy.
…the Philippous don’t care to investigate further than some grainy intercut footage à la Sinister.
When they’re scary and disturbing? Well, if they’re scary and disturbing, like “The Exorcist” or “Hereditary,” they can be hard to watch — it’s not just the visceral thrill of classic horror, it’s the feeling that we’re watching something we don’t want to see, that we shouldn’t see.
His chilling presence is deeply unnerving, channeling a level of kiddo horror we haven’t seen from a pre-teen since The Exorcist.
Even the monster, if you can call him that, lands like a low-fi metaphor out of Pet Sematary.
This is a resurrection movie with a plot not unlike Pet Sematary.
Twisting the relentless upbeat energy of Poppy from Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky into something more sinister…
The bubbliness of her character in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky…
Hawkins’ Laura is initially introduced as an unfiltered, troublesome cousin to her Happy-Go-Lucky protagonist Poppy, only to plumb new depths with every scene…
Hawkins, so sweet in practically everything (Happy-Go-Lucky, Paddington), pulls off a terrifying about-face…
…many may be fond of her bubbly turn in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky…
Hawkins, forever remembered for Mike Leigh’s comedy Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)…
Grief has been a thematic crux in many horrors since the birth of cinema, from Don’t Look Now to The Babadook and beyond.
Consistent in unease, it is, like The Babadook before it, a depiction of grief gone wrong.
…similar to Red Rooms or Speak No Evil (2022)…
I can count on one hand the horror films I’ve seen in a cinema, in the past two years, that did some active damage to me, where I couldn’t do anything but sit and feel deeply unwell after having seen them: Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms, David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, and now RackaRacka’s Bring Her Back.
In a year filled mostly with horror films aiming to hedge their bets with levity (see: Companion, Clown in a Cornfield, The Monkey)…
However, such morbid themes can also be a crutch to hide a limp story, as in the case of The Monkey.
Danny and Michael Philippou are legit, and their success here following Talk To Me echoes Ari Aster doing Midsommar after Hereditary and Jordan Peele crafting Us as his follow-up to Get Out.
While ‘Bring Her Back’ might not hold a candle to other genre standouts this year like ‘Sinners’ and ‘The Ugly Stepsister’ overall…
I've even seen some folks involved with recent box office hit "Sinners" try to claim it's not really a horror movie, even though it very much is…
The script blurs the line between atypical conduct and pure malice, a kind of gaslighting that is familiar to anyone whose watched films like Rosemary’s Baby and its imitators.
Grief has been a thematic crux in many horrors since the birth of cinema, from Don’t Look Now to The Babadook and beyond.
Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water and Ring used similar methods to express the worsening of a fragile state of mind.
Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water and Ring used similar methods to express the worsening of a fragile state of mind.
Those influences can even seem to extend beyond the genre towards unlikelier works––one being Michael Haneke’s Caché, from the presentation of Oliver in Laura’s farm to a central mystery centered around illicit videotapes…
Sally Hawkins is part Paddington’s mum, part Annie Wilkes and part Pazuzu…
The Shape of Water and Paddington star sheds her usual feel-good charm in favour of something viler and anxiety-inducing.
Hawkins, so sweet in practically everything (Happy-Go-Lucky, Paddington), pulls off a terrifying about-face…
Many associate her with the first two Paddington films, as the loving matriarch who will do anything for her family, and this offers a very different approach to that basic idea.
Hawkins is at times the loving mother, as she is in the Paddington films, and at other times she is dark, desperate, and angry.
Known for warm, whimsical roles in “Paddington” and “Wonka,” she detonates that persona here, diving headfirst into one of the most vicious characters of her career.