Danny and Michael Philippou’s latest horror film “Bring Her Back” is an intense and compelling experience which actually made me cringe more than once during my viewing. Just like their previous film “Talk to Me” (2023), the movie is quite willing to explore that dark territory of personal trauma and grief, and it admirably held my attention to the end even though it disturbed and horrified me more and more along the story.

The story mainly revolves around Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong), two underage half-siblings who suddenly become orphaned after the unexpected death of their widower father. Because there is not any close family member around them, Andy and Piper soon find themselves under the supervision of a local social worker, and their social worker promptly decides that Andy and Piper should be under foster care before Andy becomes old enough to apply for the guardianship on his younger half-sister.

The selected foster mother for Andy and Piper is a single woman named Laura (Sally Hawkins), who looks ideal for both Andy and Piper on the surface. When Andy and Piper arrive at her house incidentally located in the middle of some remote forest area, Laura cheerfully welcomes Andy and Piper, but Andy cannot help but feel awkward for good reasons. Laura seems to care a lot about Piper because Piper is visually impaired just like Laura’s dead daughter, but she pays relatively less attention to Andy, and Andy is also often disturbed by the presence of Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), another foster kid in Laura’ house who, according to Laura, has been mute due to some unspecified trauma.

Because he knows well that he can be separated from his younger half-sister at any chance, Andy chooses to try to adjust himself to the new environment of theirs as much as possible, even while becoming more aware of their foster mother’s insidious sides. At one point, Andy and Piper attend their father’s funeral along with Laura, and Laura pushes Andy into showing a bit more respect and affection to his dead father’s body, even though that turns out to be the last thing he wants to do right now.

 And we observe a number of suspicious signs from Laura and her house. There is a shabby warehouse not so far from an empty swimming pool in front of the house, and it is apparent that she does not want Andy or Piper to go inside that small building. There is a mysterious white line circling around the house and its little surrounding space, and we come to see later that this is not a mere perimeter at all. Above all, there is also a certain disturbing video tape clip shown to us a bit at the beginning of the movie.

Along with their cinematographer Aaron McLisky, the Philippou brothers steadily dial up the level of creepy tension on the screen. Laura and her house are frequently shrouded in gloomy ambience, and this often makes a chillingly ironic contrast to how Laura makes everything sound fine and good in front of Piper, who is often oblivious to what is happening around her and her older half-brother.

Needless to say, Andy becomes more desperate as coming to sense more of how Laura manipulates both him and Piper for putting more distance between them. Besides touching more on Andy’s traumatic relationship with his dead father, Laura does not hesitate to commit some truly nasty things to him, and Andy consequently finds himself pushed toward more anxiety, dread, and desperation.

 Around the narrative point where we get to know more about what Laura has been planning behind her back, the movie doles out a series of grim moments of shock and horror. It will definitely jolt you a lot with a considerable amount of extreme violence and gore during these moments, but these moments are also fueled by recognizable human motives and emotions, and that is the main reason why we remain engaged in what is being at stake for the main characters around the end of the story.

The main cast members of the film are all effective in their respective parts. While Billy Barratt holds the center with his earnest performance, young newcomer Sora Wong is solid even though she did not have any previous movie acting experience, and they are also believable in the relationship dynamics between their characters along the story. On the opposite, young performer Jonah Wren Phillips looks so convincing in several key scenes of his that you may need to be assured that he was not physically or mentally harmed at all during the shooting, and Sally Hawkins totally surprises us as demonstrating another side of her immense talent via her against-the-type casing. At first, Hawkins looks as cheery and comforting as she did in “Paddington” (2014) and its 2017 sequel, but she soon effortlessly dives into the darker sides of her character without any hesitation, and the result is another stellar performance to added to her impressive career.

On the whole, “Bring Her Back” is another good genre piece from the Philippou brothers, and I appreciate how they skillfully handle the story, mood, and characters to generate enough intrigue and horror for us. With “Talk to Me” and “Bring Her Back”, they show us that they are another interesting filmmaker to watch, and I will certainly look forward to watching whatever may come next from them.