‘Bring Her Back’ Review: A Deeply Disturbing Descent Into Darkest Corners Of Grief, Trauma & Evil Tighty-Whitie Cults

There’s something deeply disturbing happening in Laura’s home after the tragic death of her daughter Cathy who drowned in the backyard pool.

Whether you’ll actually feel sorry for Laura by the end of A24’s Bring Her Back–an unrelenting shock fest that revels in bleakness–depends entirely on if you’re OK with kidnapping, child abuse, chipped purple nail polish, and sinister cult rituals.

Consumed by grief, Laura (played amazingly by Sally Hawkins) obsesses over tapes of a sinister cult doing ungodly things in tighty-whities while gathering in what looks like Hell’s deepest, darkest dungeon.

How she acquired these demonic VHS tapes isn’t explained but she watches the evil tutorials like a comfort show.

(Her having a VHS player in 2025 doesn’t need to be explained because she looks exactly like the type of person to find one in the back corner of Goodwill)

As the film descends into depravity, we learn that she’s preparing for a sinister ritual of her own that will hopefully bring her daughter back to life.

But first, she needs a few ingredients to achieve the most deranged DIY project you’ll probably ever see.

The first is a dead-eyed boy named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) who she seems to have adopted at some point before we meet her in the film.

In sadistic scenes that will likely repulse you (or excite a complete sicko), Oliver does disgusting things to himself and attempts to eat anything he can get his hands on.

While struggling to tame Oliver’s monstrous cravings, Laura adopts foster step-siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) after the creepy death of their father.

The two have a sweet bond where Andy looks after Piper–the visually impaired piece to Laura’s foul plot.

At this point, it’s clear we’re headed to certain doom as Laura torments Andy by making him believe he’s wetting the bed (???) while loving on Piper and keeping Oliver locked in a room.

What happens next is quite possibly the most twisted sequence of events you’ll see in a Horror film this year.

*STOP READING TO AVOID SPOILERS*

If you make it this far, you learn that Oliver is a kidnapped boy who Laura uses to house an evil entity who she believes will bring her daughter back when she kills Piper in the same way her daughter died.

Determined to see the ritual through despite various bumps in the road to hell (Oliver trying to eat her, a concerned social worker coming to the house, Andy fighting back), a completely unhinged and bloody Laura attempts to murder Piper to bring her daughter back.

Does she succeed? Well, the strength of the movie is showing just how far grief pushes Laura to do the unthinkable. In a strange way, she’s relatable if you ignore her stash of satanic VHS tapes, 1987 living room decor, and poolside chicken coup.

Directed by the talented Philippou brothers (Talk To Me), Bring Her Back will certainly get people talking but it’s ultimately more depressing than entertaining which underscores the problem with A24’s slick brand of elevated Horror films devoid of any thrills or chills.

In 2024’s The Front Room, Brandy‘s insufferable mother-in-law soils herself in multiple scenes we’re forced to watch. WHY???

In this, we see Oliver do revolting things that will certainly leave some people sick to their stomach. And yes, I know, there’s an audience for this but *morphs into a boomer* what happened to scary Horror movies? *shakes cane at cloud*

Bring Her Back is now playing in theaters everywhere!