The last several years have been fantastic for horror films, not just for franchises and established filmmakers but for new voices as well. Two of those new voices are Danny and Michael Philippou, twin Australian filmmakers who gained fame through their YouTube channel, RackaRacka. When their feature directorial debut, Talk to Me, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, it felt like a special moment.
Fast forward to when Talk to Me was released by A24 on July 28, it felt like the little horror movie from a couple of new filmmakers with no major stars in it was about to be railroaded by the likes of Barbenheimer. Instead, the Philippou brothers’ movie was the little (demonic) engine that could, earning $91.9 million at the box office over a $4.5 million budget. The power of the Philippou’s was too great to snuff out, and Talk to Me was too original and too disturbing a film to ignore.
It’s because of the runaway success of Talk to Me that A24 was eager to make the Philippou’s next feature, one which was basically already ready to go. That film is this year’s Bring Her Back. Unlike Talk to Me, which had a festival run that gained enough buzz for A24 to acquire it, this movie is being kept under tight wraps and hasn’t been seen by anyone yet. Until now, as A24 has finally released a full trailer for the film, one which follows hot on the heels of the teaser trailer that dropped about a month ago in February.
A24 Debuts the First Official Trailer for Bring Her Back
Where the teaser felt a bit like A24 taking a page out of NEON’s Longlegs playbook by only giving us some evocative (and provocative) imagery from Bring Her Back, this full trailer gives us a better look at the movie itself and what it may be about. There’s a clearer look at the principal cast — Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, and Jonah Wren Phillips in particular — and certainly a depiction of the film’s dread-filled tone. Again, perhaps thanks to the success of Longlegs’ marketing, we’re not getting a rundown of the plot quite yet.
Suffice to say that, reading between the lines, the surplus of occult imagery (that ring of white!) and the hints regarding something to do with possession (not to mention that mysterious title) indicate that Bring Her Back might be a tale of ill-fated resurrection.
There’s obviously a lot more to be discovered about Bring Her Back, and it just so happens that on the night of Friday, March 28, A24 and the Philippou twins hosted an exclusive first look event for the movie in Hollywood. A24 allowed journalists, influencers, and other invitees to experience two complete scenes from Bring Her Back, as well as a Q&A with Danny and Michael, and I was lucky to be there representing Discussing Film.
New Details from Directors Danny and Michael Philippou
During the Q&A, the always effervescent Philippou brothers were as generous and thoughtful as ever, dishing out their feelings and goals for their follow-up feature. Danny revealed some of the duo’s inspirations behind the movie, which doesn’t just include the possession subgenre but also the “old-school psycho biddy films,” aka the Hagsploitation subgenre, which includes the likes of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). In speaking about their interest in using horror to explore difficult and traumatic subject matter (as they did with Talk to Me), Danny explained how his cousin lost her young child while he and Michael were writing Bring Her Back, saying “horror is a fun way to look at dark things like that.”
The brothers also vocalized their support for practical makeup effects, describing how a particular effect in one of the scenes we saw was done by making a mockup body part and using a real knife to cut it on camera. Using actual cutlery apparently extended to the sound design process (which is still currently undergoing), where Danny simply used a real blade to get the sound they desired. Other topics included the men praising their cast, discussing how they work with young non-actors, and their collaboration with the actress in building the character played by Sora Wong, who is visually impaired in real life and in the film.
A Companion Piece to Talk to Me
The whole event was an enriching one, for even though we didn’t see the entire movie, it was the comments from the brothers, the select still images in the lobby, and the art installation-esque atmosphere of the auditorium (featuring a specially cut reel of grainy VHS footage shot for the film’s ritual sequences) that gave us such a deep sense of what the film will entail.
As for those scenes we saw, I can say that Bring Her Back absolutely feels like a sister (or maybe that should be brother) film to Talk to Me. As the Philippou’s explained, the script was mostly finished when A24 approached them for their next movie, so although the film isn’t an actual sequel to Talk to Me, it certainly feels like a further exploration of the themes and tone of that movie. Sally Hawkins, who plays a woman named Laura, is remarkably unsettling even in the introductory scene I saw, her nervous tics and odd non-sequiturs making Billy Barratt and Sora Wong’s adopted children very nervous just a minute or so after they’ve met her.
A Creepy Mute Child
Somehow, Jonah Wren Phillips’ character is even more unnerving, a child who appears to be mute by choice. When Billy Barratt’s character tries to get Phillips to talk, things go south in a way that none of the people at the event expected, and had many in attendance covering their eyes. The biggest takeaway I had from the footage is feeling confident that Danny and Michael Philippou are continuing to deliver on the horror movie career that Talk to Me promised, and then some.
With Talk to Me, the brothers delivered a horror film with indie and arthouse trappings, yet it also possessed a sense of crowd-pleasing terror, all of which was a vehicle for them to tackle some thorny subject matter. The twins appear to be pulling the same trick again with Bring Her Back, and I can’t wait to see the entire movie, no matter what it ends up doing to my sleep schedule.
Bring Her Back hits theaters on May 30, 2025!
Release Date: May 30, 2025.
Directed by Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou.
Written by Danny Philippou & Bill Hinzman.
Produed by Samantha Jennings & Kristina Ceyton.
Main Cast: Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Stephen Phillips, & Liam Damons.
Cinematographer: Aaron McLisky.
Composer: Cornel Wilczek.
Production Companies: Causeway Films & RackaRacka.
Distributors: A24 (North America) & Sony Pictures Releasing (International).
