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Fresh Takes is Picturehouse's space for the next generation of film lovers to share their thoughts on the latest films coming to our screens. Aged 16-25 and want to see your words here? Find out more.

Things got pretty scary for our Fresh Takes writers this time, as they got to see Bring Her Back before anyone else at our Discover preview. The second film from the Philippou brothers (Talk To Me) is another horror story that'll have you hiding behind your popcorn – and you may never look at Sally Hawkins the same way again…

Book tickets to see Bring Her Back now.

Hannah Taylor

Hannah is a BA English and MA Screenwriting graduate based in London. Her favourite sub-genre of horror is slashers, and her interest in horror developed from an early age, watching such genre-defining classics as Halloween and Jaws. As the Senior Editor at Filmotomy, you can see more of Hannah's work here and follow her Letterboxd here. 
 
Emotionally raw and deep at the heart of its story, Bring Her Back is about the connection between brother and sister – and a mother who loses touch with reality after trauma. These dynamics work well to create something powerfully thought-provoking. There's so much subtlety, meaning, and nuance; even if the horror elements were stripped away, the story remains strong. The plot reveals an unnerving reality and captures a complete unravelling of the characters' lives. 

Bring Her Back begins as a slow-paced drama. It then develops the characters' emotional traumas and leverages them into a distinctly powerful, fast-paced horror from the midpoint onwards. With a small cast and limited locations, the film focuses on emotions: you're invested in the characters as they go from experiencing trauma to the shock and bereavement that follows. 

Directors the Philippou brothers not only toy with audiences' emotions, but utilise shock value to ground it all in reality. Their brilliant cast makes it seem all too heartbreakingly real. The visuals are chilling, haunting, and sometimes tough to endure. Water serves as strong imagery – the rain, pool, and shower all foreshadowing danger. Its extremely shocking moments cross over into the body horror sub-genre too, with authentically real sound design elevating these scenes to the extreme. But behind such powerful images is a strong story about family and belonging, identity and memory, loyalty and redemption.

Jake, 24

Jake is a lover of all types of film, but especially horror, queer cinema, and Paddington 2. Find more of his writing on not-too-loud.co.uk

After one of the most discussed (or perhaps, talked about) recent horror debuts with their supernatural chiller Talk to Me, the Philippou brothers have returned to the realm of unwise cult resurrections and domestic terror with Bring Her Back, a film that, in terms of scale and story, share familiar territory with their debut – but instead amps up the horror and gore to extreme, nauseating heights.

It's a film of two overpowering halves (mileage on whether it goes too far will absolutely vary person to person), with one half being a fantastically awkward social horror for our two leads, as they navigate their overly quirky new adoptive mother. It's carried entirely on the strengths of Sally Hawkins as a sort of nightmare alter-ego to her brilliant turn as the chaotically friendly Poppy in Happy Go Lucky. The other is half a toe-curling, unflinching gorefest that is less a work of carefully-built tension, but more a maniacal sledgehammer to the audience's sensibilities.

The violence on display is bona fide Ozploitation savagery – scenes that even left me, a mega horror fan, squirming – but balanced alongside it are two moving young lead performances, from Billy Barratt and particularly Sora Wong, whose inclusion as a blind actress is a brilliant choice, raising the stakes of the terror and amplifying the familial drama in the film's more sensitive moments. 

Whether the Philippou brothers earn such wild swings between weighty domestic conflict and gonzo brutality is up to only the most dare-worthy horror buff. 

Lucy, 24

Lucy is a Human Rights Law student at Edinburgh University. Despite this, she's always had a passion for film, and spent most of her teenage years as a movie blogger on Tumblr. Lucy is interested in unreliable narratives and film as spectacle. While certainly not style over substance, interesting aesthetics are always a plus!

Sometimes a film can't help but elicit a physical reaction – and sometimes it unleashes a series of such reactions. Bring Her Back is one such film. In their second outing following Talk To Me, the Philippou brothers again masterfully manage a reflection of grief and trauma that delves deep into the disturbing. While the movie doesn't go anywhere unexpected, it leads you to the eventual conclusion with all the same terror, as you're anxiously left waiting for the inevitable. 

Sally Hawkins is every bit as phenomenal as we've come to expect. She walks the complex emotional spectrum – portraying such a real grief, neurosis and mania – all of which are rendered incredibly chilling in the moments her character is genuinely malicious. What really struck me is that every actor pulls their weight uniformly. Admittedly, the first scene really had me doubting what the acting would be like going forward, but as soon as Piper (Sora Wong) and Andy (Billy Barratt) began speaking, they were such believable siblings  – their chemistry is so natural and grounded in familiarity that I immediately knew whatever heartbreak was awaiting me at the end of their journey would cut deep. 

That's to say nothing of Jonah Wren Phillips who – with so little to do in terms of dialogue – managed to instil a real fear in me (when he wasn't making me incredibly uncomfortable or unexpectedly sad). It's a performance of restraint and nuance, and it lingers long after the credits roll.

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