Is Bring Her Back (2025) the horror film of the year? Powerfully raw. Emotionally resonant. Visually stunning. Viscerally disturbing. And metaphorically tender. That’s only a few words to describe the latest impressive horror brought to the big screen by the Philippou brothers. An essential horror story that not only needs to be told but needs to be seen (to truly believe it) too.
Adopted brother and sister duo must navigate the terrains of grief and the foster care system after their father passes away. For her acting debut, Sora Wong plays a fantastic portrayal of Piper – a visually impaired fourteen-year-old who is oblivious to the manipulative nature of her new step-mother, Laura, played by Sally Hawkins who steps up to being simply sinisterly haunting in the role.
Emotionally gripping, the characters are well-developed with two really strong leads who catapult the story into almost real-life territory. Elevating the characters is of course the fantastic cast who are each phenomenal in their own right to deliver viscerally stunning performances.
Billy Barratt’s Eerily Stunning Performance In Bring Her Back (2025)
But undeniably Billy Barratt shines as the main star here at just 18 years old. The London-born native starred in Responsible Child (2019) for which he won the International Emmy Award for Best Actor in 2020; becoming the youngest-ever winner at 13 years old. In Bring Her Back (2025) he plays Andy, the seventeen-year-old elder brother of Piper.
Barratt delivers a stunning performance of a heartbroken brother who has so much emotional resonance and trauma that unravels throughout the story. There’s so much behind his character in terms of both writing and in Barratt’s eerily stunning performance that work together to bring this beauty to the forefront of the film.
Of course, added mention goes to Jonah Wren Phillips who showcases an emotionally disturbing and unsettling performance as Laura’s twelve-year-old adopted son, Oliver. Everything we know about him is secretive and kept under wraps until a huge unravelling of his storyline. One that is nonetheless well-developed but also heartbreaking.
Carving Their Own Path In The Industry: The Philippou Brothers
The Australian YouTubers-turned-filmmakers, Danny and Michael – collectively known as the ‘Philippou Brothers’ first stepped onto the horror scene in 2022 with their debut film, Talk to Me (2022). Also, a supernatural horror, the brothers have certainly seemed to carve out a space for themselves in this horror sub-genre. All such impact with just two films shows how far they can really go with their strong horror storytelling. From a personal viewpoint, Bring Her Back (2025) wholly excels the Philippou brothers’ directorial debut. The two films exist in the same horror universe, but their stories are not linked. At times, though you can’t help but compare them.
There’s plenty of horrifically gory moments that will even make the most dedicated horror fans disappear into their seats. It’s a story that begins as a slow-build to a midpoint which accelerates into a mayhem of gory madness. It will most likely impress horror aficionados but for beginner horror watchers, it may just be too much horror-to-handle.
Our script changed after we’d lost a very close friend of ours in pre-production. It changed the entire tone, and the ending. Scenes that were written and developed to be really scary turned really sad. And we found a more honest truth. The characters felt more human because you were looking at it through a more personal lens.
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Danny Philippou on the making of Bring Her Back (2025) in an interview with BAFTA.
Bring Her Back: A Uniquely Scary Story
But what sets Bring Her Back (2025) apart from other Supernatural Horror films is the strong emotional realism which creates an unsettling, disturbingly brutal atmosphere – one that you can ironically ‘cut with a knife.’
Arguably one of the most disturbing scenes of the film (and one that literally ‘carves’ its own path in horror cinema) involves a kitchen knife and melon. It’s brutally unwatchable but you still can’t look away regardless. Unfortunately, the all-too realistic sound design makes you watch the screen through your fingers. But it definitely does its job to scare you senseless.
Clearly the Philippou brothers know the horror genre inside out. They use typical horror scares and reverse them which truly sets this horror into motion. Something that really grabs the audience’s attention is how they stay away from typical horror jump scares that somewhat currently saturate this genre.
Although, the brothers then reverse this completely and use horror elements to a much deeper effect. For example, the continuous use of water imagery to convey an impending sense of doom and danger. There’s a strong emotional build-up and resonance surrounding such visceral images whilst working alongside the actors and their horror game-changing performances.
Emotional Horror Storytelling
But it’s not the stereotypical horror image of a dripping tap and instead it’s using the shower, the bath, and the sink in interior shots to the rain, the swimming pool, and puddles in exterior shots to really stand out in its storytelling. They use quite normal, everyday routines and acts like showers or swimming – often activities we think of so seamlessly in order to build up dread and suspense.
Yet the Philippou brothers reverse these and make them seem frightful. It’s really the combination of overwhelmingly unique jump scares along with clever nuanced storytelling devices that create such sinister horror effects. In a recent interview with BAFTA, Danny Philippou revealed that both of their favourite scenes to shoot tend to be the most gruesome, stating ‘the scene I’m most proud of is probably our really extreme horror moments, because they’re always the most fun to film and they always tend to be the most memorable. So it’s always very exciting about trying to find a way to really ingrain ourselves into people’s memories. And I feel like we maybe achieved that in a couple of the scenes here.’
Bring Her Back (2025) makes the viewer evoke a range of emotions from empathy, heartache, and sorrow to fear, manipulation, and pure terror. It’s different from all the horrors that have come before. But most of all, it’s memorable and leaves you thinking about each of the characters stories, trauma, and backstories long after viewing. And it’s truly a unique story where you can really root for the brother and sister duo… even if it means hiding behind your cinema seat.
Want to read more on the Horror genre?
Read our review on I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) here.