[8]
After the death of their father, a brother and sister (Billy Barratt and Sora Wong) are placed in foster care with a disturbingly odd woman (The Shape of Water‘s Sally Hawkins) who has sinister plans for them. Barratt suspects early on that Hawkins is dangerous as she drives a wedge between the siblings and keeps a third foster child, a mute boy with insatiable cravings (Jonah Wren Phillips), locked in his room day and night. As Wong falls under Hawkins’ spell, Barratt uncovers the horrifying truth that their foster mother is planning to sacrifice all three children in a ritual of dark magic — hoping it will bring her deceased biological daughter back to life.
Bring Her Back, written and directed by Australian filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me), is one of the most anxiety-inducing and emotionally upsetting horror films I’ve seen since in the past fifteen years (up there with 2008’s Eden Lake or 2009’s The Loved Ones). Sally Hawkins gives a supremely creepy, award-worthy performance on par with Kathy Bates’ turn in Misery, and the three juvenile performers are remarkably strong as well. The Philippou’s do a fantastic job laying down the dramatic stakes and making them believable, despite the film’s supernatural overtones. Hawkins’ character controls the children in believable ways, resorting to haunting emotional and physical abuse that may be hard for some viewers to stomach. By the time Barratt’s character solicits the authorities for help, you’re praying they’ll intervene — but Bring Her Back offers no easy way out for either its characters or the viewers.
Superbly written, directed, acted, and lensed by Aaron McLisky, my only criticism of Bring Her Back is that it’s just a little too mean spirited, treating one of the principal characters too harshly for my taste. But if an affecting horror film is what you’re looking for, that could rightfully be interpreted as a ringing endorsement.