Bring Her Back (2025) Review: A Dark Depressing Slow Burn
Bring Her Back is the sophomore feature of RackaRacka, aka Danny and Michael Philippou. It follows a pair of siblings, Andy and Piper, as they move into their new foster mother, Laura’s, house. They soon discover a terrifying ritual they’re all a part of. Bring Her Back is a much more traumatic and emotionally driven movie from the duo’s first film, Talk To Me. It dives heavily into loss, trauma, and grief, as both the siblings and Laura’s losses are the catalyst for the story. The core of the story also revolves around family, as we see what Laura is willing to do to get her daughter back, and what Andy does to protect his non-sighted sister, Piper, from the world.
I found one of the main pillars of the movie to be the extent to which these characters would go for their family. Andy is protective of Piper, even during the mundane day-to-day activities they experience. The movie opens with her trying to make friends, but the girls make fun of her for her eyes. He consistently paints the world in a lighter lens for her to protect her from how cruel it is. He hides that their father, whom she adored, abused him and caused him to act out.
Grief and loss are the other core of Bring Her Back. Laura, played by Sally Hawkins, lost her daughter tragically and was never able to let her go. She says how it kills her that she gets to sleep in a bed, but her daughter is in the ground. She goes to unspeakable, horrific lengths for the chance to see her again. I thought some of the best moments of the movie were when she and Andy were talking about Andy’s dad dying and her daughter drowning. There, we are able to dive into these characters' psyches and why they are the way that they are.
Sally Hawkins is excellent in Bring Her Back. Similar to Hugh Grant in Heretic, her soft, sensitive demeanor draws you in and allows you to sympathize with her, but as the movie progresses and her mask comes off, she can flip the switch. Even when she is at her worst and most despicable, she still somehow maintains her sensitivity at the end. She struggles with doing what is right and wrong, and I really found the ending shot for her to be really beautiful in a way.
Billy Barratt, Jonah Wren Phillips, and Sora Wong were great finds for the film. In her first real acting role, Wong was able to have real screen presence amongst other, more experienced actors. Her relationship to Andy is what sells their family bond and what makes this movie work as well as it does.
As for Barratt, he perfectly embodies what an older brother should be. He protects his younger sister at all costs from the evils of the world and does everything he can to ensure she can live a comfortable life. He lapses and lets his anger and his repressed trauma get the best of him, but it’s what makes him feel real. Jonah didn’t have much speaking to do, but his physicality is what elevated the horror of Bring Her Back. The way he’d twitch silently or bang into walls or glass added so much tension.
To that point, Bring Her Back is very much a slow-burning horror movie as opposed to a jumpscare-filled frightfest. I do feel like they could’ve incorporated more horror elements into the story leading up to the end, as leading up to the ending, you only have glimpses of what the movie is really capable of. The best way I can describe it is like if you shot a basketball and it spun around the rim a bunch of times before finally going in. The horror lies beneath the surface here, as I was filled with more dread than anything as the story unfolded.
There are snippets of VHS that guide Laura on how to bring her daughter back that are quite unsettling and frightening to watch, but the movie doesn’t utilize them as much as you’d expect from the trailers. What gets you is the gore and practical effects, specifically what is done to Jonah Wren Phillips. So many moments throughout this movie, I had to pull my hoodie over my eyes because it gets very visceral.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Bring Her Back is one of the best horror movies of 2025 already. It is thematically rich and overall such a dark, depressing, visceral watch. The performances are all so grounded and tortured, led by the wonderful Sally Hawkins, and the gore and horror are completely dreadful in the most complimentary way possible. Bring Her Back proves once again that the Philippous have such a bright future in horror.