Grapefruit

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2025

#6 :  Bring Her Back

With their second feature, the Philippou brothers proved that Talk To Me was no fluke. While the party vibe of their debut is toned down in their follow-up – another bone-rattling A24 possession horror – they dug even deeper emotionally this time, delivering an invigoratingly brutal and breathtakingly dark tale of dead kids and adults driven out of their mind by grief, all propelled by the terrible things you might do out of irreplaceable love and loss. Sally Hawkins is fearsomely brilliant as Laura, the foster parent who takes in brother and sister Andy and Piper (Billy Barratt and Sora Wong, both outstanding) with nefarious intent – inflicting them with psychological warfare, lovebombing, and a sinister supernatural plot. The filmmaking here is precise and powerful, the performances gut-wrenching, the energy and tension undeniable – cementing the Philippous as new horror greats.

I'm not a massive fan of horror films (massive understatement) but I actually really enjoyed Talk To Me, so I've got reasonable expectations of this.

It's basically a horror staple of "decent people sent somewhere that seems OK but SOOOO isn't going to be". But there are also a load of other horror tropes involved of the not-OKness variety which makes it intriguing to guess where the peril is going to come from and you know it's probably going to be all of them or something completely left-field - and oh boy does this get left-field. If I had to quibble, I might complain that the landing feels a bit forced, but I guess the film does need to end.

Overall, I'd say its a good mix of physical (some of which is NASTY!), psychological and supernatural horror, with teasers drip-fed to you throughout the film, some of which help and some of which very much confuse (but in a good way). The Philippou brothers have obviously studied horror in depth but they're not going to just regurgitate what they've seen before.

So it's well written and it's also really well filmed - for what could easily get away with being a low budget horror, they've really gone out of their way to make it look classy with some very decent lighting and shot composition. And, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but there are some HORRIBLE scenes in this and they're unpleasantly believable - apparently one of the Philippou boys chewed on a knife as research for one of the scenes (and if you've seen it, you'll know which scene it is).

The other thing that elevates this is the acting - obviously you know (Oscar nominated) Sally Hawkins is no slouch because she's in Paddington 2 and everyone knows that's the best film ever. However, Billy Barratt, who's also English (it's a VERY Australian film otherwise) and, I'm very tickled to learn, is Shakin' Stevens grandson and Sora Wong don't have P2 on their CV but they're also really good - they don't have obvious chemistry, but they work together well. I also have to give Jonah Wren Philips a shout out because he's pretty much the only other actor in the film for more than five minutes and he's very good (and super creepy) but doesn't have a load of dialogue - to be fair to him, his character is mute, which never helps with lines.

I absolutely have to say that this is a very unpleasant film, but that's exactly what it's trying to be, so it's got to be happy with that. Obviously it's not going to be for everyone (my mum would really not like it) but if you're into a bit of drama and you can handle your horror then this is well worth a watch. I say this as someone who doesn't like horror films but I really quite liked this - it's really quite horrifically compelling and perfect for a long wintery evening so if you fancy it then it's on Sky to stream or all the usual other places to rent

#7 - Well worth watching