I Watch Films: Bring Her Back

 

Bring Her Back (2025)

Andy and his step sister Piper, who is visually disabled, are taken into care in Australia after their father dies. Andy is 17, so can’t be Piper’s legal guardian. They are taken in by Laura (Sally Hawkins), an eccentric former counsellor, whose own visually disabled daughter Cathy died. She favours Piper over Andy, and has a shaven headed, non-verbal child she’s fostering, Oliver.

As becomes clear not all is well; Laura comes between Andy and Piper, pointing out when he tells Piper about their father at the funeral even though he can’t look at him. Laura takes a lock of hair from their father’s body after having Piper touch it. She uses her own urine to make it seem Andy has wet himself.

When Piper and Laura go out Andy lets Oliver out of his room, tries to get him to write on a notepad. Oliver tries to eat a knife, and when Andy carries him over the white line surrounding the property he has a fit and says “help me”. Returning Laura calms him, and recreates a ritual she has on a tape that she’s watched late at night.

Laura is mixing classic abusive tactics to try and divide Andy and Piper; her reason for doing this is a convoluted ritual to bring Cathy, her dead daughter, back in Piper’s body. To do that she requires a demon-possessed child (Oliver) and someone like Cathy who has recently died in the same manner. A paranoid, disturbing mixture of mundane and supernatural horror.

Watch This: Gruesomely effective child abuse horror
Don’t Watch This: Kids hurt, lied, killed; grief and obsession