(Photo Credit: A24)
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(“Bring Her Back” trailer courtesy of A24)
The term demonic gets thrown out too loosely in modern society.
Everything that a spiritual person disdains is labeled as demonic.
But make no mistake, the new horror flick “Bring Her Back” is some demonic madness that sometimes becomes hard to watch.
In “Bring Her Back,” Piper and her stepbrother Andy have had a difficult life.
Piper (Sora Wong) is visually impaired and shunned by her peers.
However, she has a protective brother, Andy (Billy Barratt), who always has her back.
Despite their hardships, Piper and Andy still find humor in their predicament.
When the cool kids ignore Piper at a local bus stop and Andy comes to her rescue, the visually challenged girl makes a joke that she does not know Andy, and that he is a pedophile looking to take advantage of her.
Thankfully, she does not need protection from sexual predators.
But Piper will need her big brother more than ever when their father tragically dies in the shower, making the two orphans.
In “Bring Her Back,” social worker Wendy (Sally-Ann Upton) immediately finds a foster home for Piper.
However, her future foster mother, Laura (Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”), does not want Andy because she has had problems with older teenage boys.
To make matters worse, Andy has a history of violence, dating back to his pre-teen years.
Somehow, Wendy is able to persuade Laura to take both children into her home.
Andy is turning 18 years old in a few months.
When he becomes a legal adult, he plans to petition the court to obtain guardianship over his little sister, which cannot happen too soon because there is something off with their new stepmother.
Therefore, Piper and Andy must endure Laura’s odd home for a while, and then they will be out of there and on their own.
But when one is in the presence of a psychopath, surviving their craziness for a few months might become a few months too long.
In “Bring Her Back,” Laura immediately begins invading Andy’s privacy, always wanting to know who he is texting and what he is taking a picture of.
Andy is instantly captivated by Laura’s mute son, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who is frequently confined to his bedroom while the rest of the family enjoys their freedom.
He thinks Oliver is the strangest young boy he has ever seen, which Laura does not appreciate.
Oliver’s eccentricities have only one equal, and that is Laura.
At Andy and Piper’s father’s funeral, she insists that Andy kiss his dead dad on the lips because it is customary to do so.
While Piper might be a little more impressionable because of her youth, Andy is not fooled by Laura’s oddball antics and behavior.
He senses that something is wrong with his new stepmother.
But he cannot put his finger on exactly what is occurring in her home.
In “Bring Her Back,” Andy becomes so unsettled that he begins wetting the bed, something Laura is all too eager to share with Piper and Wendy.
Additionally, Laura is all too eager to share information about her dead daughter with Piper.
The young Piper reminds Laura of her dead daughter so much that she begins dressing Piper in her deceased daughter’s old clothing.
She even bequeaths her daughter’s old bedroom to Piper when she moves into the home.
In “Bring Her Back,” Laura is fixated on watching old VHS tapes of her daughter, as if she hopes to bring her back from the dead in some way.
And when Andy finally understands the depths of Laura’s depravity, it might be too late to save him and his sister from the devil’s work.
In defense of “Bring Her Back,” horror films should be demonic, evil and gory.
But there is something especially devilish about “Bring Her Back.”
Additionally, “Bring Her Back” will have people with the strongest stomachs looking down or away from the movie screen when things get a little too gory, like in the scenes when Oliver begins devouring his own flesh.
Although “Bring Her Back” might be hard to watch during some unsavory scenes, when moviegoers watch it, the actors will not disappoint them.
Despite not having an extensive acting resume, Wong totally takes over “Bring Her Back.”
She holds her own against her more experienced counterparts.
Her performance as a visually-impaired girl is completely authentic because she suffers from that affliction.
The filmmakers joked that they had a visually-impaired girl play a visually-impaired girl and a demon-obsessed boy play a demon-possessed boy.
Phillips plays Oliver in such a disturbing way that audiences might truly believe that he is possessed by Satan.
However, the weirdest character of all is Laura.
Hawkins has such an odd demeanor about herself in “Bring Her Back” that her face alone would scare anyone.
The only normal characters in “Bring Her Back” are Andy and Wendy, and Laura makes it her mission to manipulate them to achieve her satanic desires.
Despite the performances, “Bring Her Back” does not quite get there.
What is most intriguing is how “Bring Her Back” has an element of “Get Out,” directed by Jordan Peele in the film.
Movie fans must watch the film to get that fact because to explain it would give away too much of the plot of “Bring Her Back.”
Furthermore, “Bring Her Back” gets off to a slow start as Andy and Piper attempt to navigate the loss of their father.
But maybe that just symbolizes how they are slowly walking to a date with a devil.
REGAL RATINGS
FOUR CROWNS=EXCELLENT
THREE CROWNS=GOOD
TWO CROWNS=AVERAGE
ONE CROWN=POOR
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