These days, it seems to be impossible to find a work of horror that doesn’t market itself as some intense, cerebral experience that will disturb viewers long before it even begins to entertain them. It seems like the entire genre has shifted towards trying to find the most disturbing and unsettling way to tell a story, and a film is given additional credit if it is able to shoehorn in some deeper commentary around a more resonant issue. This was the principle that guided Danny and Michael Philippou to make Talk to Me, their audacious and brilliant directorial debut that immediately drew our attention to their skills, made doubly impressive by the fact that they were known for broad comedy before pivoting into horror. Unfortunately, they did suffer the fate of many ambitious young filmmakers, in that their sophomore directorial outing was the very definition of a misfire, losing all the goodwill amassed when their wonderful debut first premiered and took the industry by storm, due to their willingness to dive to the depths of the human condition to handcraft a truly incredible but unsettling nightmare of a film. Bring Her Back tells the story of a pair of stepsiblings who are sent to live with a foster family after the sudden death of their father. They immediately begin to suspect something is amiss, especially when their new guardian proves to be a deeply enigmatic woman who clearly harbours deep, sinister secrets and makes it quite clear that her new houseguests are there to serve a particular purpose to her. Not a good film in any way, and one that can’t even be called a failure based on having potential that is squandered by poor execution – Bring Her Back is as poorly-conceived as it is executed without even an ounce of precision, being an overlong, daunting ordeal more than a film that even begins to approach greatness, falling apart long before it can even delude us into thinking its good, which is a problem that is not spoken about nearly enough as the industry rallies around a version of the horror genre that has frankly forgotten the very spirit of the genre.

When she was promoting the reboot of Halloween in 2018, Jamie Lee Curtis would frequently mention how the films were secretly about trauma – and while she was subjected to playful ridicule based on how frequently she discussed that point, she was actually something of an oracle, since we’ve gotten to the point now where every horror film seems to be about grief in one way or another, making it by far the most common theme present in a lot of these works, which aim to terrify while touching on a subject that will resonate with many viewers. The problem is, we simply did not need yet another film that features a villain mourning an enormous loss, which explains their cruel, violent actions. I’m not entirely sure what drew these directors to making this film – it doesn’t seem to be based on anything explicitly drawn from their own lives – and we can see that it’s not a particularly personal project. Instead, it’s a one-dimensional examination of the mourning process, drawn around the edges of a trio of characters, each dealing with a significant death in their own way. Andy and Piper recede into a world of delusion following their father’s death, while Laura is a woman who resorts to malice and flirtations with the supernatural in an effort to reconnect with a daughter who was the victim of her negligence. It’s not a complex approach, but is also far from being all that interesting, lacking any real substance and essentially just being a one-dimensional exploration of how trauma can lead someone down some very dark paths, the process of grieving being not only to reconcile a monumental loss, but also resisting the temptation to recede into the darkest recesses of one’s mind, which become extremely inviting in many of these instances. Bring Her Back exists right on the surface, never diving deep enough to actually leave much of an impression when it comes to exploring these themes, and frankly, finds it perfectly satisfactory to just take the low-hanging fruit, an enormous disappointment considering the potential at the outset.

A film that is as original as it is endearing (which is to say, not at all), Bring Her Back feels like every negative quality of this recent wave of more intelligent horror has been compressed into a single work, and forced through a grinder that removes every bit of entertainment value – and it frankly feels as if the Philippou Brothers were not trying to counteract their comedic past, but actively show contrition for dedicating the first portion of their careers to lighthearted material, rather than intense, challenging horror. Firstly, it is tonally an absolute nightmare – there aren’t even any attempts to humanise these characters, and we are instead plunged into a complete state of despair, one in which nothing actually comes together, and all we are left with after a while is a bundle of jumbled scenes in which we are told how to feel, rather than actually led to experience these emotions for ourselves. The directors refuse to give the audience the benefit of the doubt – they over-explain absolutely everything, making us wonder whether they genuinely believed what they were doing was in any way revolutionary – and spend far too much time establishing the key themes (which are painfully obvious from the start), rather than doing something that is even vaguely unique. Conversely, they also seem to neglect the morality of this story – the film prominently features a blind protagonist, which initially does seem like a step towards inclusion (which should be celebrated) until we realise that the character’s disability is going to be trivialised to the point of being almost disrespectful, using her blindness as a means to progress the plot in ways that seem to come about solely because the directors were unable to connect certain elements reconciling it with the decision to just make the character blind and hope that everything else makes sense. Unfortunately, not only do we notice the cracks in the plot, but it becomes actively infuriating to see how they sacrifice morality in favour of masquerading as being inclusive, not helped by the dour, bland tone that persists throughout this already narratively impoverished film.

One benefit of making an audacious debut that causes the entire industry to immediately take an interest in your work is the ability to work with notable names, who will often flock to these ambitious new voices, knowing that they will be participating in their continued growth, and are more likely than not going to be given roles unlike anything they have done before. The Philippou Brothers clearly piqued the curiosity of Sally Hawkins, one of our finest living actors, and someone whose versatility and ability to play such unique roles seemed to be a good fit for the directors. She’s actually quite good in the film – every problem present in Bring Her Back doesn’t apply to her directly, or rather, she is the last person we’d be able to blame for the lacklustre filmmaking and the fact that the film is simply not very good. This doesn’t excuse some of the more questionable aspects, or mean that the directors are off the hook for extracting a great performance – if anything, Hawkins deserves isolated credit for being able to take such a thinly-written, bland character and turning her into an unforgettable villain. As a character, Laura is not well-defined, but rather than being a creative kind of ambiguity, it’s simply frustrating to see the extent to which she is not given anything to do, to the point where we have to admire her efforts to infuse the character with layers that were simply not present from the start. The two young protagonists – and the victims of Hawkins’ malice – are portrayed by Billy Barratt, who has already started to make a name for himself, and Sora Wong, in her acting debut. Neither of them is given anything entirely impressive to do, but they’re very good, even when the film uses them more as elaborate props than developing them properly or with any sense of nuance. It’s quite unfortunate the extent to which it refuses to do anything beneath the surface, becoming quite unmemorable, despite the best efforts of all of the actors, who are simply never given the right amount of attention.

Considering how much the concept of the “elevated horror” has persisted in the culture, it was only a matter of time before those chasing this specific style would find themselves undergoing a kind of implosion – its simply not feasible to take a genre as beloved as horror and reducing it to the point where everything that makes it so popular is entirely missing, all the fun and thrill that comes with being terrified replaced by commentary so heavy-handed, it feels like we’re going to walk away with a few bruises to the back of our heads (which unfortunately does speak to some of the questionable aspects of the plot), which is not what anyone wants from a good work of horror. It was just unfortunate that it came from a pair of directors who have shown promise in the past, and genuinely seemed poised to become the next major names in contemporary horror filmmaking. It certainly doesn’t indicate that the death knell for this kind of horror filmmaking is coming to a close – there are still some filmmakers that prove interesting work can be done when more intelligent ideas are applied to the genre – but rather than the Philippou Brothers may just be one-trick ponies, people who struck gold on their first attempt and struggled to capture the same spark when going for another round, which is all too common an occurrence, leading us to patiently anticipate their next effort in the hopes that this is just a case of the sophomore slump rather than a sign that they simply don’t have the skill to follow through on the potential presented by their extraordinary debut. It’s a film that has nothing to say that we haven’t already heard, lacks any real substance, and ultimately becomes nothing more than a pale, uninspiring jumble of ideas, none of which ever truly come together in a meaningful or memorable way.