Bring Her Back proves even great horrors aren't horrifying anymore

Do movies have the ability to scare us anymore? 

This is not a question of whether they can disturb us. The early 2000s evolution to violence-based endurance cinema via Saw, Hostel and The Human Centipede proved we still cringe at the worst depictions of gore. 

And the more recent turn to cultural commentary via horror metaphor — as seen in The Substance, Sinners and The Invisible Man — proves we are still at least passingly interested in horror as a vehicle for something deeper. After all, what's more cutting than to suggest that racism, colonialism and misogyny are the actual boogeymen of today — and that these, unlike vampires, are shockingly real? 

But for those films that still try to achieve the genre's original goal of making us shudder at what goes bump in the night,  perhaps their work is cut out for them. 

That includes Michael and Danny Philippou's new A24 production, Bring Her Back. The follow-up to their 2022 viral smash Talk To Me, it's a visually beautiful and cinematically stylish outing, though it may be better viewed as a blood-drenched drama rather than pure horror. Another supernatural thriller à la The Exorcist, its slick excesses are sure to garner critical and audience approval, even if one can effectively guess at the general beats of its possession plot about 15 minutes after its unfortunate stars amble in together. 

That's because, like its recent predecessors, Bring Her Back isn't among the meta-fictional outcropping of horrors. Those offerings — like Ready or Not, Cabin in the Woods or Happy Death Day — eschew fear entirely, to instead cleverly point out, and joyfully subvert, just how formulaic the genre has become. 

Instead, as its marketing would suggest, Bring Her Back goes for something closer to horror's increasingly elusive original promise. Following blind teen Piper (Sora Wong) and step-brother Andy (Billy Barratt) shortly after the death of their father, the "her" of Bring Her Back's title takes a bit of doing to get to. First, we're greeted by manically kind foster mother Laura (Sally Hawkins), her creepily mute foster son Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) and her deeply unsettling stuffed dog. 

But as Laura bristles at Andy's plan to apply for guardianship of his sister when he turns 18, the foreboding atmosphere quickly ramps up. 

There's something wrong with Oliver; his dead-eyed stare and attempts to wrestle with their cat can't be right. There's something off with Andy; his bed-wetting, dead-to-the-world drooling sleep and hallucinations of his dead father suggest as much. 

And most of all, there's something worrying with Laura; her thinly disguised obsession with Piper — and even less disguised disapproval of Andy — is clearly covering something more sinister. There is a creeping, malevolent wrongness in that house, bubbling up from just barely beneath the surface. 

Though, again, all but the most horror-averse will likely piece together what's hiding under that surface no longer than about 10 minutes after the character archetypes establish themselves. There is the innocent lamb here, the penitent but sin-stained martyr there, and the ill-advised deals with the devil that can only ever go one way for those foolish enough to enter into them. 

That's compounded by an ending that feels like a step back from the edge, an at-once predictable yet vaguely disappointing finale that undercuts its own message. This kind of failsafe turn, while something of a relief from the unrelentingly dour atmosphere up until then, also feels like the Philippous are unable to trust that their audience knows what kind of movie they've agreed to.

But this type of ending is not rare for mainstream horror, a genre that isn't quite willing to alienate all but its most die-hard fans. And it also isn't enough to ruin what has come already — including stunning performances by Barratt (Responsible Child) and Hawkins (The Shape of Water) — predictable as the plot may be. It at least occasionally shocks through the gore, namely through its blood-drenched, toothy crunches — almost more horrifying when you hold your hands in front of your face to be assaulted solely by the sound.

However, overall — through both its atmosphere and the dare-you-to-watch marketing — Bring Her Back means to unsettle.