In the 2022 horror movie Talk to Me – which its Australian directors, Danny and Michael Philippou, described back then to Dazed as like “a big, personal, therapeutic poo” – a young boy repeatedly smashes his face against a table. That’s generally the feeling during the Philippou brothers’ follow-up feature, Bring Her Back, a gory, upsetting drama that riffs on the themes of Talk to Me, just with more emphasis on pain, grief and then some more pain.
“We were contractually obligated to make Talk to Me 2 next,” says Danny, the more talkative of the pair, over Zoom from Australia a few days before the film’s UK release. “But A24 let us do what we wanted.”
“Talk to Me is a popcorn movie,” says Michael, sitting next to his twin brother. “But Bring Her Back has the energy of a psychological descent and spiralling out of control.”
Not that there isn’t fun to be had with Bring Her Back, an effective, propulsive horror that has you throwing snacks in the air, turning away from the screen in disgust, and questioning why you didn’t go for an uplifting romcom instead. It’s just that the Philippous, both of whom are 32, have deployed the success of Talk to Me – it made $92 million from a $4.5 million budget – to get a significantly gnarlier film made, one with a 10-year-old kid biting a kitchen knife in the most self-destructive way possible.
Both Talk to Me and Bring Her Back were written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman (a pseudonym for a collaborator, not Michael, who prefers to avoid media attention) around the same time, hence their overlap in concerns. Unsurprisingly, the one that involved horny teens partying found financing first. “Bring Her Back feels more like a raw piece of art to me than Talk to Me,” says Danny. “We lost a close family friend right at the start of preproduction and had no time to process those emotions. The film became a way to express what we were going through. We changed the ending.” Grief altered the film? “Yeah. Scenes that were written to be scary, ended up becoming sad.”
In Adelaide, 17-year-old Andy (Billy Barratt) and his blind step-sister, Piper (Sora Wong), are taken in by a former counsellor, Laura (Sally Hawkins), after their father’s death. Laura, who lives with a mute foster child, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), is like a typical Sally Hawkins character – think Paddington or Happy Go-Lucky – but with a malicious energy lurking beneath the cheery exterior. The clues are in how Laura tricks Andy into thinking he’s wet himself, or how she grabs his phone when he’s not looking. Eventually, she’s assaulting Piper at night and convincing the young girl that it was, in fact, her brother taking advantage of her impaired eyesight.
Laura’s motivation is rooted in her own grief – her daughter, also blind like Piper, died at a young age – and alluded to by Oliver’s lack of social skills, as if something’s been drained from him. When Andy hands Oliver a piece of cantaloupe on a kitchen knife, Oliver bites through the blade, allowing it to cut into his teeth and lips. The camera doesn’t turn away; instead, it zooms in. At previews, viewers told the Philippou brothers that it was either their favourite moment, or so grotesque that it should be removed from the finished film. “There was a test screening where they did the analytics,” says Michael. “It was 50/50 down the line.”
When our close friend passed away in preproduction, it was like his story was completely cut off. That’s what loss does. Things aren’t completely resolved. A lot of films tie things up in a neat bow, but in real life that doesn’t always happen
The Philippou brothers are former internet celebrities whose RackaRacka YouTube channel spawned viral hits like “Ronald McDonald Tastes Burger King”, which has 91 million views. In 2019, they moved from Australia to LA with the hope of selling their script for Talk to Me. They ultimately shot Talk to Me and Bring Her Back in Australia because, according to Danny, they could have more creative control. As for whether they picked up secret writing jobs in LA, the pair jokingly refuse to elaborate. (They were once attached to direct an adaptation of Street Fighter.)
They’re in Australia now as they finish their next film, a documentary about deathmatch wrestling. Michael explains that he emailed a pitch to A24 and was stunned by their enthusiasm. “We’re fascinated by the underground deathmatch wrestling world,” says Michael. “These people are looked down on, not just by wrestlers but in general by society. They walk around with so many scars on their face. You’d cross the street if you met them. But they’re amazing people. What’s driving them isn’t what you’d think. The idea of being able to humanise them was exciting to me. We’ve been shooting it for three years. It’s probably the most personal thing we’ve done. It’s certainly the most graphic.”
Two versions of Talk to Me 2 have been written, both with completely different characters. However, the duo plan to follow their deathmatch documentary with another original horror movie. Have A24 asked for Bring Her Back 2? “They’re letting us navigate,” says Danny. “I’d be down to do a Bring Her Back novelisation. There’s so much of the story we haven’t been able to tell. Laura’s diary is literally written out, from start to finish, for every part of the story.” Danny holds up the diary to his laptop webcam, flicking through the pages. One handwritten excerpt: “I’m disappearing little by little under the water. Quiet. Unnoticed.”
In its second act, Bring Her Back reveals itself as a supernatural thriller that involves possession, demons, and attempts to resurrect the dead. Of course, it’s only a surprise if you ignore the opening scene – grainy video footage of an occult ritual – and never wonder why the film is called Bring Her Back. On Reddit, viewers who have studied the film multiple times are still debating the plot machinations. Why does Oliver miaow? Why is he fed a dead person’s hair? One thread titled “Something chilling I understood in Bring Her Back on a second watch” has 119 comments; nearly every user has a different theory.
“We have the answers to all the questions surrounding the supernatural stuff,” says Michael. “But it’s about not over-explaining things.”
“You can visit the website that Laura visited,” says Danny. “You can see the tapes she bought. You can explore that stuff if you want to. But when our close friend passed away in preproduction, it was like his story was completely cut off. That’s what loss does. Things aren’t completely resolved. A lot of films tie things up in a neat bow, but in real life that doesn’t always happen. Breaking out of that felt exciting and authentic. It’s a worry because you don’t know if you’re going to alienate audiences because of it.”
Ultimately, though, if viewers feel atrocious by the end of Bring Her Back, the directors have succeeded?
“Well, yeah!” says Danny.
“The idea of entertainment is to escape into a world,” says Michael. “With this film, it’s…”
“To escape into misery,” says Danny, interrupting with glee. “This film is like listening to a sad song when you’re sad.”
Bring Her Back is out in UK cinemas on July 26
