The Best Horror Movie of the Year!

            Two years ago, the Philippou brothers released an absolute banger of a horror movie, and it was their feature length directorial debut. It was also one of the scarier movies that I have seen in recent memory. It is not scary in the traditional sense, but more so in the content was very disturbing, and in large part, it is due to their incredible sound design. Their follow up feature came out this past weekend, and they delivered another horror masterpiece. It is just as, if not more, disturbing than Talk to Me, and their sound design is just as good, and they continued their creativity into inventing cringe inducing visuals.

            Bring Her Back starts with the death of Andy and Piper’s dad, and he was their lone parent, and although Andy was just three months away from being able to be Piper’s legal guardian, they still put them into a foster home. Laura becomes their foster mom, and she seems overly enthusiastic about having them join her and her other adopted kid, Oliver, who is mute by choice. There is more than meets the eye though. Laura is recovering from the recent loss of her daughter, who was blind like Piper, and she is also plotting against Andy, because she does not want him to have Piper in three months. Also something is not right with Oliver. Whenever Laura leaves, she locks Oliver in his room, and one time, he breaks his window and tries to break into their shed. He also tried to strangle the cat in his first appearance in the film.

            As the story progresses, Oliver’s actions become more concerning, as do Laura’s, and it becomes clear that Oliver has been possessed by some sort of spirit, and that he must stay on the property otherwise, he will start to convulse. Laura’s intentions for Piper also start to become clear. It was no coincidence that Piper is blind, and that Laura’s daughter was blind, and that the movie is called Bring Her Back, but Andy is onto Laura, and he is willing to do anything to protect his sister and despite his bad reputation, he convinces the social worker to come and investigate what is going on at the house.

            There are two key tenets to this film, Gaslighting and Grief. Laura is the queen of gaslighting, and Andy is getting the brunt of this. She does not want him around, so that he can brainwash Piper into becoming her daughter, so she does what starts out as small things that slowly get bigger to make him look bad. It starts out with just blocking him in their opening photo, but then she pees into a cup and pours it on him in the night multiple times to make it look like he is going through trauma over the death of his dead, and it climaxes with Laura putting on Andy’s cologne and then punching Piper in the face in the middle of the night, so that Piper would think that it was Andy. Laura did this after Andy trauma dumped to her about his dad being abusive, and how he was jealous of the relationship his dad and piper had, so it looked like it was an act of revenge. It was so frustrating to watch this happen to Andy, who was just trying to protect his sister.

            The gaslighting and other insane actions that Laura did came from her grief. It does not excuse her insane behavior, but it is an explanation. Obviously, the loss of a child would be a very hard event to get through but going to the cemetery and digging up the body, and throwing it in a meat freezer so that you can hopefully turn another blind girl into your daughter seems a bit much.

There was also the grief that Piper and Andy were going through, and these were two different types of grief, because their dad meant different things to them. Andy was dealing with the death of his abuser, and he had Laura trying to dictate how he should grieve in a very inappropriate manner, because she was a “counselor.” Whereas Piper was dealing with the death of a beloved parent. Everyone processes grief differently, but for Laura it was paralyzing, all she could do was try to find a way to bring her daughter back.

            But as Pet Semetary taught us, this is never a good idea. Oliver was some resurrected spirit, and clearly, he was not doing well or acting like who he was supposed to be, and it probably would have been the same for Laura’s daughter if she was brought back. In Pet Semtary, when they tried to bring their child back, they initially seemed kind of normal, but it quickly shifted into a nightmare. Life may not always go your way, but you must do the best you can to process the grief in a healthy way. The elevated horror elements also made me think about Hereditary, which is also about a mom who cannot deal with the grief of losing her child, but Hereditary is the better of the two movies, which is not a shot at Bring Her Back, Hereditary is just that great.

            Also just like Talk to Me, the sound design in this film is key to what makes it so disturbing, that and their incredible practical effects. There are three key scenes that come to mind. The first is when Oliver breaks the window and he gets a giant gash in his hand, and that wound is so wide, and just awful to look at, and Laura just dresses it at home and not at the hospital. The second scene will live in my head forever. Andy is cutting up fruit for him and Oliver to eat, and Andy stabs a piece of the melon and hands it to Oliver on the knife, and Oliver grabs the knife, and when Andy turns around, Oliver starts biting the knife and its cutting through his lip and chipping his teeth, and it was like nothing I had ever seen before, I was cringing in my seat so badly. Finally, there is a scene where Oliver turns on Laura and bites her arm and takes a giant chunk of it, and later Laura pulls on the skin in her arm and makes it worse, and it is so nasty. The visuals are gross, but the sound effects that go with them is what really is the game changer. The squelching is unbelievable.

            I would be remiss if I did not mention the part of the movie that made me laugh out loud multiple times. When Piper and Andy first move in, Laura says to Piper let me introduce you to my dog, and she puts Piper’s hand on a taxidermied dog, Luara’s dead pet, and Laura fake barks at Piper and scares her and starts laughing. Just a brief moment that shows how unhinged Laura is from the start, and I laughed so loud, and no one else in my theater did… Then later, there is a party scene, and Luara puts two party hats on her stuffed dog.

            This was easily the best horror movie of the year. It was super emotional in the worst way, and it was a very frustrating watch as we see Laura gaslight Andy and see him lose his grip on his sister, especially when we know the fate that awaits her. It was a very violent and disturbing watch, and it kept me locked in for the whole runtime. Obviously, it is not for everyone, but if you are a fan of horror or unique cinema, I would highly recommend it, and it gets added to the reasons why I do not want to go to Australia cinema cannon. 4 Stars!!