2022’s Talk to Me, directed by South Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, was the best Australian horror film since Wolf Creek; much scarier than 2014’s The Babadook, which was horror so elevated and heavy on metaphor that it played like a TED talk on depression. Talk to Me was refreshingly raw, demonstrating an adept touch of the harshness of the Australian suburban experience and – especially – the language of its teenagers. The realism grounded the more far-out aspects; it was still a film about a cursed hand, but a cursed hand terrorising kids we know.

Their hotly anticipated body-horror follow-up is Bring Her Back, which relocates the action to the Australian household, but keeps the gritty realism. Seventeen-year-old Andy (Billy Barratt) and younger sister Piper (Sora Wong) lose their dad in traumatic circumstances. They’re placed in the care of foster parent Laura (UK actress Sally Hawkins, doing a good Aussie accent). Laura is quirky and personable, but overly familiar. She’s also traumatised from the loss of her daughter in a tragic drowning accident. Accordingly, she quickly fixates upon the younger Piper as the spiritual – and perhaps physical – embodiment of her dead child. There’s also Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a mute boy living in the house who spends too much time in the empty pool. As you definitely expect, all is not what it seems.

Less a fright-fest than its predecessor, Bring Her Back fits neatly into the “be careful what you wish for” brand of gothic horror. You know the one: Grieving parents trying to reverse the flow of time and the natural order of life, with monstrous results. Think Pet Sematary or the short story The Monkey’s Paw by English author WW Jacobs, to which it bears resemblance. The Philippous wisely frame the horror through the lens of Andy and Piper, the latter of whom is almost completely blind and can see only colours and shapes. The cinematography, staging and sound-design are all first rate, reflecting the film’s bigger budget, and it’s satisfyingly gory using practical special effects. There’s one gruesome scene involving teeth and a kitchen knife that makes a compelling case for why the two should never meet.

But Bring Her Back is less scary than the Philippous’ debut, perhaps because it strays into the waters of metaphor that characterise the A24 elevated horror formula. Hawkins delivers a powerhouse depiction of grief and mania, but there’s a predictable cadence to her character’s unraveling and emotional arc. Characteristic of their emotionally-informed generation, the Philippous place trauma front and centre. It’s the prime mover of narrative action; we’re consumed by it, or we overcome it to survive. These are worthy themes and Bring Her Back is a worthy follow-up. But we’ve all known the Boogeyman lives within for some time now, so the PSA aspirations of Bring Her Back make the film less unpredictable, less volatile, and less scary.

But the knife scene – I promise that will stay with you.

 

Bring Her Back opened yesterday in cinemas.