Australian horror film-makers have spectacularly overdelivered in the last few years, conjuring various nerve-shredding bangers including Late Night with the Devil, You Won’t Be Alone, You’ll Never Find Me, Sissy, Leigh Whannell’s underrated Wolf Man reboot and Talk to Me. The latter – which revolves around thrill-seeking teenagers who converse with spirits instead of taking recreational drugs (kids these days!) – marked the fiendishly good debut of Adelaide-born directors Danny and Michael Philippou.
They’re back – or baaa-ack! – with another serving of macabre bravado pulled from the black cauldron. Bring Her Back is lighter on thrills and spills for the midnight movie and heavy with thick, abject horror and despair, featuring an intensely disturbing performance from Sally Hawkins as a foster mother from hell. She plays Laura, a former social worker who welcomes into her house two teens around whom the story orbits: Piper (Sora Wong), who is vision impaired, and her older brother, Andy (Billy Barratt).
