When grief creates monsters

The sensational and surprising success of Talk to me (Talk to me) in 2023 made the doors of Hollywood open for brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, with million-dollar proposals such as making a new adaptation of the video game Street FighterHowever, the Australian duo managed to avoid (for the moment) the siren calls of the blockbuster and returned to his native Adelaide to tell another scary tale, with a more dramatic, but not necessarily more mature, delivery than his debut. The filial relationships, which were already central to Talk to me, they gain even more weight in Bring her back (Give it back to me), which introduces us to two siblings on their father's side who have been left alone in a hostile world. The youngest, Piper, has serious vision problems, and the eldest, Andy, has three months left until he reaches the age of majority and can apply for legal guardianship of his sister.

While they wait for that date, social services place them with a foster mother, Laura, who is somewhat disturbing beneath her veneer of eccentric effusiveness, perhaps because she is still processing the grief over her daughter's death. Also in the house is Ollie, a silent child who circulates on the margins of the story and the screen and who, from time to time, chillingly demands the spotlight.

In the previous film, the Philippous turned up the scares to eleven almost from the first minute. Now, however, they attempt to build a sustained crescendo in a more traditional way, but the play of expectations ends up working against the idea, especially when the climax begins to take a turn that blurs the ritualistic nature to which the story had been committed. However, Give it back to me It leaves us with a memory of a Sally Hawkins worthy of entering the infamous pantheon of terrible mothers in horror cinema, and a handful of horrific images. Enough to warrant paying attention to the directors' next move.