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    ‘Bring Her Back’ Review: A Foster Mother Like No Other

    Sally Hawkins plays a menacingly unhinged foster parent to two bereaved siblings in this emotionally potent chiller.We ask a lot from our horror movies, which is perhaps the main reason they can be so divisive, and so difficult to get right. We want them to shock, but not traumatize; to disgust, but not sicken; to creep us out, but not bequeath a month’s worth of nightmares. On top of all that, can we please have some jokes?Instead of stressing over these pressures, some genre filmmakers, a number of them women, are determinedly carving their own idiosyncratic paths. Among these are the Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, who have followed their wonderfully disquieting debut feature, “Talk to Me” (2023), with another three-word imperative, “Bring Her Back.” The two movies have more in common than their titular grammar: Both draw sustenance and momentum from familial grief, and both exhibit an extraordinary sensitivity toward their emotionally flayed central characters.When we meet Andy (Billy Barratt) and his younger stepsister, Piper (Sora Wong), Andy’s father has just died and the siblings must be fostered for three months until Andy can assume guardianship of Piper, who is legally blind. At first, their temporary foster mother, Laura (a delicious Sally Hawkins), seems welcoming, if a little dippy, her somewhat rundown property boasting a taxidermied pup, a mysterious chalk circle and a strange little boy who is mute and near-feral. His name is Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips, incredible) and I could write several paragraphs just on what he puts in his mouth. Suffice to say that, during one horrifying episode, I didn’t exhale until it was over.Even so, the movie’s forceful visual shocks (executed mostly with practical effects) are easier to bear than its restlessly mounting anguish. Though more logically muddled than its predecessor, “Bring Her Back” operates from a core of tragedy whose weight offsets the nebulousness of the plot. Why is Laura, who recently lost her own daughter, so determined to drive a wedge between Piper and her fondly protective stepbrother? Why is she mesmerized by grainy camcorder footage of what appears to be a bloody satanic ritual? Why must Ollie be kept locked in his room and apparently starved?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More