“When you’re developing and writing something, it’s just whatever’s happening to you at the time, whatever you’re going through at the time is like automatically inherent in the material,” says writer-director Danny Philippou of Bring Her Back, a new tale of horror he created with his brother Michael.
With their 2022 debut feature and horror phenomenon Talk to Me, filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou established themselves as some of the most exciting new voices in genre filmmaking. Where that movie, in which teenagers chase the high of conjuring spirits to possess them at house parties, was
partly inspired by the recklessness they’d experienced as high school students, it was grounded, and elevated, by a very real sense of consequences.
“With the movies that we make, whether it’s horror or any other genre, we really want our stories to have a strong emotional core. The stuff we want to create, we want it to work on multiple levels,” said Michael of their first feature. Danny agrees, emphasising that their features so far are clearly and confidently
a work of genre. “We don’t want to be scared of something that’s a horror movie. We want to embrace that it’s a horror film, and be proud of making a horror film.”
It is with masterful control of the genre, and how audiences respond to their stories, that the brothers are able to combine horror, dark emotional undercurrents, and surprising comedy to maximum effect — putting real, relatable characters through the ringer to reach something more effective and far more
memorable in the end.
The filmmakers cite the wave of Korean genre films of the 2000s, notably Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of
Murder, as an inspiration in this way, how the now-Oscar-winning auteur was able to place queasy humor, slapstick, and the long emotional tail of trauma at the core of a film about the fundamentally unknowable mind of a serial killer.
Now, two years after their breakout film, the Philippou’s follow-up is Bring Her Back, returning the writing-directing duo to an excavation of the horrors of suburban family life that is heightened by the deepest emotional shocks and gnarliest gore of any genre film in recent memory.
When two step-siblings are placed in the care of a mysterious foster mother, they find themselves drawn into a world where grief and memory blur the line between reality and the unknown. Set in a remote home steeped in silence and secrets, Bring Her Back is a haunting exploration of love, loss, and the lengths we go to hold on — even when letting go might be the only way forward.
It began with a much softer, more innocent inspiration
“Our friend’s little sister is non-sighted, and there was a situation with her family where she really wanted to go and catch the bus by herself, but her parents wouldn’t let her do it,” Danny says. “She was trying to communicate with them that she’s going to have to learn to navigate the world without everyone babying her all the time, that she needs to have her own independence.”
That thematic core, of a teenage girl making her first steps towards independence, would manifest in the story of Piper (Sora Wong), who has low vision, shielded from the darkness of life by her protective older brother, Andy (Billy Barratt). Andy tends to paint the world in rose-colored hues for Piper, sheltering her
from its worst because he can’t bear to share a world that is so ugly with his little sister. But after the two siblings experience a tragedy and its unavoidable horror, they are flung into far more unthinkable circumstances.
Piper and Andy land under the care of Laura (Sally Hawkins), a child-care worker and counsellor living in a secluded home with the orphaned, and increasingly troubled, Oliver (Jonah Wren
Phillips). As brother and sister slowly unravel the horrible truth behind Oliver’s disturbing behaviour, his deterioration appearance, and a mysterious empty swimming pool at the center of Laura’s property, the Philippous methodically reveal the internal underworld of their tale, through snippets of horrific found footage and the dawning realisation of their new circumstances.
“Talk to Me feels like a party horror film, but this film is more character-driven,” Danny says. “We liked the challenge of a contained story about these three characters, focusing on their relationships.”
A Fractured Family
For Laura, whose secrets drive the narrative, the brothers were inspired in part by a lineage of films stretching at least as far back as the 1962 classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which focus on broken characters who withdraw from the real world into a dark fantasy of their own creation. When the fantasy is shattered by the world around them, their response to that incursion is often one of violent withdrawal — there are few things more powerful than a comforting delusion.
The characters in these films are “not necessarily bad people to begin with, but the world is bad, and bad things have happened to them and they’ve internalized everything,” Danny says. “And so, with Laura, what was exciting was trying to write a character that you uncomfortably sympathize or identify with.”
The Philippous instantly thought of Academy Award-nominated actress Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), whose dramaticrange and ability to embody a character’s fragile past made her a dream fit for the role. They were also intrigued by the fact that she had never quite tackled a film like this before — even if the emotional intensity was more similar to her work with the great Mike Leigh in Happy-Go-Lucky and Vera Drake.
“Seeing all these different characters that she would build big backstories for, that was so exciting to me, the idea of someone bringing that much care to her characters,” Danny says.
Adds Michael: “Laura is written almost in a more outwardly confident way, but Sally brought this depth to it and portrayed it in a different, more interesting way. Laura struggles with what she’s doing in the film, and that is what humanizes her, I think.”
Hawkins, for her part, was deeply impressed by the young film makers, the character-driven way they were building the film, and their way of working with the cast.
“Danny and Michael will storm the world. They have never-ending energy and drive, which can only inspire those around them.
They are so smart, so witty, and coupled with such emotional intelligence and integrity,” Hawkins says. “It’s a delicate piece and dealing with delicate subject matter, albeit in a rather terrifying frame or mask. I felt completely supported and trusted and given the space needed to do what I felt I needed to do.”
On Gore and Lore
First with the ghastly other-side souls of Talk to Me and now with the encroaching demonic presence of Bring Her Back, the Philippous never tire of dreaming up work for their talented makeup design teams. They enlisted both Sydney-based Make-up Effects Group (M.E.G.) and Larry Van Duynhoven’s
Melbourne-based Scarecrew Studios for the film.
“We love practical effects and building stuff and trying to find things that haven’t been done on film before,” Danny says.
All of this is in service of the built-in lore of the film. The lore of Talk to Me was potent but still somewhat willfully obscured by the way the Philippous chose to tell that story. It was, in fact, part of the film’s narrative engine that there was this mysterious hand with a lost legend that everyone in the film was trying to understand and piece together. In reality, the directors had written at length about all of the spirits the kids in the film were connecting with by engaging with the hand, as well as the experience of every kid who engaged with it.
The same is true of Bring Her Back, with its dark and foreboding ritual seen in fleeting VHS glimpses throughout the film. That ritual holds the immediate answer for what’s going on with Oliver, but it only scratches the surface of the film’s internal mythology.
“I always like when you don’t over-explain that stuff. You hint at it,” Danny says. “If you read the original script of The Shining, where you know that Jack Nicholson is actually a reincarnation of this other person that used to live at the hotel. All that stuff is completely stripped out in the movie, and then it’s the photo at the end where people are, like, ‘Wait a second.’”
The practical effects and world-building, and the way the film makers draw audiences in, are all in service of the central and terrifying logic of the film, one that lands with an emotional wallop when audiences realize the truth about Oliver’s condition.
“Oliver as a character is a manifestation of grief and the way it can eat you alive,” Danny concludes. “That’s the monster in this story: the consuming, never-ending pain of unresolved grief. The VHS tapes of the ritual are essentially a corrupted inversion of Laura’s home videos, another reflection of her unnatural grieving process.”
Just as Talk To Me ended on a thrillingly expansive note, showing that the story in the film was just one part of a larger, fully-fledged world, Bring Her Back’s unshakeable and haunting impact is achieved by the sense of reality and dedication to craft that the filmmaking duo bring to their new film.
Twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou are an Australian writer-director duo, known for their online presence in comic horror and action
Danny and Michael’s passion for storytelling began on YouTube where their videos have been watched over 1.5 billion times with over 6.7 million subscribers. They gained notoriety from their homemade slasher videos, stunts, and comedy sketches. In 2015, RackaRacka’s channel was awarded the Streamy’s Best International YouTube Channel, landed on Variety’s 2016 Fame Changers, and ranked 5th on Financial Review’s Cultural Power List. In their home country, RackaRacka won numerous awards at
Online Video Awards and the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award for Best Web Show.
From Backyard Mayhem to Global Screens
Danny and Michael Philippou are twin brothers best known for their visceral blend of horror, comedy, and emotional storytelling. They rose to fame through their YouTube channel RackaRacka, which launched in 2013 and quickly gained a cult following for its chaotic, stunt-heavy videos that fused pop culture parodies with outrageous physicality.
They began filming backyard wrestling videos at age 11, inspired by WWE, often staging elaborate (and dangerous) stunts with friends. Their YouTube channel exploded with viral hits like Harry Potter vs Star Wars, earning millions of views and multiple awards, including the Streamy for Best International Channel. Their film industry breakthrough was launched when they worked behind the scenes on The Babadook (2014), which helped refine their cinematic instincts.
Known for their Greek heritage and DIY ethos, the brothers blend genre spectacle with emotional depth, often using horror as a lens to explore grief, identity, and obsession. Their feature debut, Talk to Me (2023), premiered at Sundance and was lauded for its psychological intensity. Bring Her Back (2025) followed, cementing their reputation as emotionally driven genre filmmakers.
They’ve described their work as a way to “exorcise demons” — not just for their characters, but for themselves.
As for Talk to Me 2, the brothers Philippou have written two different versions of the sequel, one that is directly connected to its predecessor, and another that’s more of a “sidequel.” Both stories are centered on new characters.
“One is continuing the story exactly on, and then another one is focusing on a new set of characters,” Danny Philippou shares. “We’ve written two sets of different characters in two different worlds that focus on two different themes.”
Screenwriter Bill Hinzman’s first credit was Talk to Me, which he co-wrote with director Danny Philippou. He has worked with both Danny and Michael on a range of projects since 2011.
