When half-siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) lose their father to cancer they find themselves placed with foster parent Laura (Sally Hawkins) and her other foster child Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips). 

Andy immediately finds Laura not only eccentric but rather exclusionary in her attention. Laura has also recently suffered the loss of her sight impaired daughter Cathy (Mischa Heywood) and she is rather enamoured with devoting all of her attention to sight impaired Piper. And then there is the rather odd Oliver who is not only selectively mute but whom Laura often locks up so that he does not try to eat her cat. 

As Laura insidiously undermines Andy’s standing and threatens his ability to adopt his sibling when he turns eighteen we slowly see more and more of Laura’s end game. 

Bring Her Back is an exceptional horror movie that delivers superbly well on every front. Its emotional centre focuses on the loss of a loved one dear to you such as a father or a daughter in the case of our lead characters. Exploring the extremes of grief that those life events can trigger and the steps you would go to in order to not lose those people. There are also stories of child abuse that are rather painful that run through the characters motivations. 

Sally Hawkins delivers the sort of performance that horror fans will argue deserves awards recognition, something that rarely happens in this genre. Laura is the sort of deranged antagonist that goes to extreme lengths to get what she wants but does so in such a believable manner it makes everything so much more chilling. Anyone used to seeing her in films like Paddington are in for a wild ride. 

Matching that force of nature like performance is the chemistry between actors Billy Barratt and Sora Wong who play siblings with a deep bond. Their “grapefruit” conversations a real sign of their trust. 

The tension constantly ramps up, the mystery of Oliver and Laura keeps you rapt and as the film comes to its finale it delivers on gruesome horror and pulls no punches. 

Director brothers Danny and Michael Philippou have now delivered two superb horror movies back to back with Talk To Me and Bring Her Back. Let’s hope they can continue to scare us in this way for years to come.