'Talk to Me' directors tackle grief and gore with 'Bring Her Back'
Spoiler alert! We're discussing important plot points and the ending of "Bring Her Back" (in theaters now), so beware if you haven't seen it yet.
Making a visceral, gory, emotional roller coaster of a horror film is a good way to navigate some personal tragedy.
Three years after scaring the summer box office with the hit “Talk to Me,” Australian filmmakers (and twin brothers) Danny and Michael Philippou return with another, very different possession film. “Bring Her Back” was already on tap to tackle grief, love and cycles of abuse when a family friend of the Philippous died before filming started.
Their "sadness" affected the movie, though they turned into a positive, Danny Philippou says. “It is so therapeutic. It did feel like saying goodbye.”
“Bring Her Back” stars Sally Hawkins as Laura, a social worker and foster mom who takes in Andy (Billy Barratt) and his visually impaired younger sister Piper (Sora Wong) after their father dies. But Andy discovers something stranger than the weird white painted circle around the house: Laura is using her foster son Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) as a conduit for a supernatural being to resurrect her recently drowned daughter Cathy. (Her exhumed corpse is lying in a shed out back. We’ll get to why in a bit.)
The Philippous dig into how they pulled off the gnarliest scenes, why the ending changed and how “Bring Her Back” connects to “Talk to Me”:
Jonah Wren Phillips gets the most squirm-inducing moments in ‘Bring Her Back’
“Talk to Me” showcased the brothers’ gift for gore, and “Bring Her Back” takes it to a whole other hide-your-eyes level as the possessed Oliver begins to act out in terrifying fashion.
First, he grabs a butcher’s knife and tries to eat it, leaving his mouth a bloody, scraggly toothed disaster. In that sequence, a rubber knife was used with a fake head, though “it's the sound design that really sells it, which was me actually chewing on a knife,” Danny Philippou explains. And then the hungry child begins to chow down on the countertop, taking out huge pieces with what’s left of his teeth. The filmmakers let Phillips go to town on super-soft custom-made balsa wood laced with chocolate.
He’s “the toughest kid ever,” Philippou says. "Every day he came to a set with a smile on his face.”
Sally Hawkins' occult-leaning mom has a ritualistic reveal
Laura has somehow obtained mysterious VHS tapes with grainy footage of people creepily coming back to life, and subtitles explain to the secret to her plan. The possessed person consumes the soul of a deceased person (Oliver eating Cathy), and a third body (Piper) can become the host for the dead by repeating the manner of death and having the possessed regurgitate the soul into it.
Laura also has a healthier way to grieve – watching home movies of Cathy – and Danny Philippou says these found tapes are “an inversion" of that. (He and his brother built out a lore and backstory by reaching out to real occultists.) Like the teens using an embalmed hand to conjure dark spirits in “Talk to Me,” “Laura's completely out of her depth,” Philippou adds. “She’s struggling with what she's doing, and doesn't even 100% know how to execute it.”
The death of a friend changed the ‘Bring Her Back’ ending
In the film's climax, Andy tries to show another social worker that Laura’s out of her mind, but Laura murders them both, desperate to complete the ritual. She attempts to drown Piper in the backyard pool but when the frightened young girl yells "Mom," Laura can’t do it and stops the ritual.
Piper escapes and when she's confronted by Oliver, she kicks him in his bloated belly, and she runs off as Oliver pukes brown muck that's assumably Cathy's soul. Piper is picked up by some good samaritans, the cops find Laura embracing her daughter’s corpse, and Oliver escapes the white circle surrounding the property, freeing him from possession. “The sad part is he's going to be scarred for life,” Danny Philippou says.
Michael Philippou reveals that they considered “a few different endings,” including one where Cathy actually did end up in Piper’s body. But a bigger, scarier planned finale was scrapped when their friend died and it switched to a more emotional one. (The end of the movie includes a dedication to Harley Wallace.)
“Death is really unfair and it's really sudden. People don't get a resolution,” Danny Philippou says. “Harley died at 22, 23. His story wasn't finished." The film's ending "goes against the conventions a little bit but it feels more true to life.”
Is 'Bring Her Back' a sequel to 'Talk to Me'? No, but they're connected!
The Philippous want to do a third horror movie and are currently 60% done with a documentary about death match wrestling.
They’re also writing a sequel to “Talk to Me,” and Danny Philippou says he’s found a “small way” to tie their breakthrough hit with "Bring Her Back" where they exist in the same world. (He hints that something is coming soon that will tease that connection.) “It all happens on this one street,” Michael quips. “Don't buy a house in that neighborhood!” Danny warns, laughing.
The demons that possess people in “Talk to Me” are predatory spirits and lost souls. But in “Bring Her Back,” Laura says it’s an angel that’s in Oliver, and the Philippous tend to agree.
“Oliver is not good or bad,” Michael says. “He's committing this miracle. He's bringing back a lost loved one.”
Also, “he's not there with evil intentions,” Danny adds. “He’s like a genie in a bottle. You rub the lamp, he's going to come out.”