This came in as a hot one. From the directors of Talk to Me and from A21 Studios, I’m sure there was a lot of anticipation for this one from horror fans. I do remember seeing the trailer, but only because I saw people mentioning that the trailer did a very good job of not spoiling anything. If anything, the movie title itself was likely more of a spoiler.

Bring Her Back is one of those weird movies for me where it’s obviously a very good horror movie, but somehow I can’t find much about anything to write about in reflection afterwards. The horror-grief sub-genre I’m sure is no stranger to most fans by now. It gets a bit played out, but Bring Her Back is a good example of how it can be done better than most. The slow pacing worked in some areas, but I ultimately felt that it didn’t do enough to highlight the relationship between Piper and Andy. They seem like they have a good stepbrother/sister relationship, but I think some parts could have worked better via flashback scenes. One example would be to highlight how Andy’s father beat him when Piper wasn’t around. Also, Grapefruit? What is that about? How did they both come up with that secret codeword?

There were some truly intense and horrifying scenes that were very well done. That knife scene was extremely brutal to watch. The movie does rely on a lot of gore and blood to inflict the “horror” part on the viewers, so squeamish people may likely not make it to the end. The makeup and visual effects on Ollie at times were brilliantly done as well. Being a pretty thorough person, I expected more explanation on the whole ritual thing. How did it start? How did Laura come into possession of those gruesome tapes? It obviously worked as Ollie was possessed, but I was confused at first at what the next steps were. He wanted to eat Piper, but Laura kept postponing it, and so bro literally ate anything else in plain sight. Turns out he’s supposed to be eating her dead daughter in the freezer instead, only to then have her soul/spirit transfer over to Piper? I think that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Regardless, everything just revolves back to the grief of a mother losing her child and willing to do anything to, well, bring her back. The movie is sad all around mainly because Laura did initially find happiness of some sort when she took in Andy and Piper. The scene of them getting drunk and dancing at home was something that she could have continued to enjoy throughout their relationship, but instead, she continued with her ritualistic plans. Maybe she would have gone down this road eventually as it was made clear that Andy would be taking over guardianship of Piper in a couple of months and would be moving out. Her unwillingness to go through with the final sacrifice of Piper and instead lay with her dead daughter’s remains in the center of the pool goes to show she has finally come to terms with the situation. She’ll have a lot to think about in jail.