Bring Her Back (2025): A Bold Step Forward or Horror Overload?

Bring Her Back: An Audacious Chapel of Gore, Grief, and Faith

Danny and Michael Philippou earned overnight credibility with Talk to Me, yet their sophomore feature Bring Her Back feels less like a cautious sequel and more like the moment they shatter stained-glass windows and invite the congregation to witness something wilder. The 2025 film follows foster siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) as they move in with Laura (Sally Hawkins), a mother still clawing at grief’s edges after losing her daughter. What begins as unconventional parenting quickly mutates into séance-lit rituals, VHS-tape iconography, and blood-slick floors that seem to soak into your shoes long after the credits roll.

The movie’s dedicated page on What’s After the Movie offers a summary, actor bios, quizzes, and links to other providers. Below, however, is a full-throated opinion on whether the Philippou brothers’ latest sacrament is a modern horror revelation or an exercise in sensory overload.

Is Bring Her Back Actually Scary?

Most viewers agree that the film courts dread rather than jump-scare gymnastics. There may only be a single startle, but nearly every frame hums with unease: briny water stains creep down faded wallpaper, ceiling fans wheeze like dying lungs, and background silhouettes refuse to stay put. For seasoned horror enthusiasts this atmosphere is pure catnip; newcomers, however, may find the relentless gore exhausting. What ultimately makes the experience unsettling is not a barrage of stingers but the way grief itself manifests as a supernatural contagion, seeping into each domestic corner until escape feels impossible.

How the Performances Carry the Carnage

Sally Hawkins, best known for understated roles, delivers a hypnotic turn as Laura, swaying between fragile kindness and Old-Testament fury. Her haunted tenderness grounds even the film’s most grotesque imagery. Equally impressive are the younger leads. Billy Barratt’s Andy internalizes survivor’s guilt without tipping into melodrama, while Sora Wong’s Piper pairs fearless curiosity with visceral terror that never feels performative. Their rawness culminates in a late-film possession sequence whose trembling pleas left more than a few audience members sobbing aloud. Such authenticity rescues material that might otherwise read as exploitative and proves the Philippous can elicit nuanced work even amid flying viscera.

Does the Gore Serve the Story—or the Shock?

Here lies the fracture line among audiences. Admirers insist the violence is thematic: blood becomes literalized grief, wounded bodies mirror psychic trauma, and each dismemberment feels like an exclamation point in Laura’s desperate liturgy. Detractors, on the other hand, see indulgence for its own sake. A few viewers reportedly walked out midway, branding the film “mindless.” Personally, I found the brutality purposeful until the final reel, where one extended torture tableau edges dangerously close to spectacle. Whether you perceive that boundary as bold or gratuitous will likely define your relationship with the film.

Grief, Faith, and the Weight of Myth

The screenplay makes its boldest gamble by hinting that its monster might be an angel: a being of biblical terror rather than demonic chaos. By refracting horror through maternal devotion, the film sidesteps slasher clichés and instead interrogates the lengths to which a parent will go to resurrect lost love. The sibling duo embodies displacement even before the hauntings begin, and their yearning for stability amplifies every candle-lit ritual. The thematic richness invites the same lore-digging curiosity Talk to Me inspired, yet Bring Her Back remains frustratingly reticent about its VHS tapes, cult history, and cosmology. A director’s cut could transform those tantalizing fragments into a cohesive mythology worthy of repeat dives.

Where the Film Loses Its Balance

Despite its ambitions, the story telegraphs major beats early; genre veterans may guess the finale by the twenty-minute mark. Equally vexing is the unfinished lore. The tapes, the chanting, the whispered celestial references—each strand shimmers, yet none are braided into a satisfyingly thick rope. Finally, pacing wobbles near the climax. An exquisitely slow-burn setup offers a payoff laced with a couple of exposition dumps that clog the momentum just when the horror should be accelerating. These imperfections will not derail hardened genre lovers, but casual viewers could feel they endured trauma without enough narrative reward.

How Does It Compare to Talk to Me?

Where Talk to Me weaponized a single cursed object and a gut-punch ending, Bring Her Back sprawls wider, richer, and messier. Think of it as a passion project that sacrifices sleek efficiency for spiritual heft. Some will prefer the predecessor’s tight focus; others will applaud the new film’s more operatic reach, even if it occasionally trips on its robe.

Critical Chatter Beyond Our Walls

Aggregate scores on Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb reveal a perfect storm of five-star raves and one-star walkouts, a polarization shared by communities on TMDB and Letterboxd. Box-office obsessives can chart its financial pilgrimage at Box Office Mojo, while streamers should bookmark JustWatch to see where it lands after its theatrical run. Tickets are already living their own afterlife on Fandango. Naturally, the most comprehensive trove of spoilers, quizzes, and scene-by-scene breakdowns remains the What’s After the Movie blog.

Final Verdict: Should You Accept This Unholy Invitation?

Bring Her Back is a sermon delivered with a butcher’s cleaver—unwavering in its conviction that horror can be artful, emotional, and spiritually provocative. It does not always know when to sheath the blade; scenes of child endangerment will test even jaded gore-hounds. Yet its performances, tactile direction, and raw meditation on grief elevate it well above disposable shock cinema. For admirers of Talk to Me, the film represents a compelling—if chaotic—evolution. For viewers squeamish about bodily trauma or unresolved lore, proceed carefully. Either way, Danny and Michael Philippou ensure the conversation continues long after the final cut, which is precisely what vital horror should do.