By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Having made their on-line fame on YouTube with a series of comedic and horrific shorts (as RackaRacka), Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou made a powerful entry into the feature fright scene with 2023’s TALK TO ME. Now they’re in theaters again with BRING HER BACK, which if anything is even more grueling than their debut movie, and which they discuss here with RUE MORGUE.
Released by A24 and scripted by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, BRING HER BACK stars Billy Barratt as 17-year-old Andy and Sora Wong as his vision-impaired younger sister Piper, who are orphaned as the movie opens. They’re taken in by foster mother Laura (Sally Hawkins), who is already caring for Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a little boy who doesn’t speak and exhibits strange behavior. Things get much more bizarre and shocking from there as the siblings and the audience discover that Laura has horrific plans for the two of them, tied to her grieving for her own deceased daughter. Featuring remarkable performances by Barratt and Wong and a game-changing disturbed turn by Hawkins, BRING HER BACK (see our review here) cements the Philippous among the most exciting talents in the current genre scene.
While TALK TO ME was an ensemble film, BRING HER BACK has a tighter focus on a smaller number of characters. Was that an intentional change in emphasis?
DANNY PHILIPPOU: Yeah, we wanted this to be more of a character-driven film, a slow burn and psychological. There was a bigger focus on character, and a way to do that is to reduce the amount of people in the film. TALK TO ME was always designed to be a party horror film, and we wanted to commit to a different energy here.
MICHAEL PHILIPPOU: Yeah, but it’s so strange. In a way, it’s a smaller film than TALK TO ME, but then in others, it’s way bigger. It’s things that you wouldn’t even think about in terms of shooting and stuff that were bigger, but in a different way.
I’ve read that BRING HER BACK actually started with the character of a nonsighted girl, rather than the horror concept. Can you elaborate on that?
DANNY: Yeah. Whenever we’re writing, or creating characters, it’s about feeling like they and the story could exist outside the genre. That’s what makes the characters feel real: Draw from your own experiences and people you know, create a film that feels personal, and then you can add the horror and build out from there, and make sure it expresses those themes in a fun way. It’s always character first.
MICHAEL: We were speaking with a friend’s little sister who’s nonsighted, and the stories from her kind of formed the core ideas for the movie.
DANNY: Even in those conversations, discussing what she felt seeing would be like, what that experience would be for her, she said, “I’m glad I can’t see, because then I don’t have to see the ugly things in the world.” It was such an interesting statement that became the thematic base for the entire film.
How did you go about casting that part?
MICHAEL: We wanted to have a real vision-impaired girl, and so there was an Australia-wide search, including at schools for visually impaired people. We had girls come in in that age range who were interested in acting, and held auditions, and that’s how we met Sora. She never acted before, but we did an improv with her and said, “This is the scene, this is your character, this is what you’re feeling,” and she just knocked it out of the park. She was able to put herself in that moment, and blew us all away just improvising, even though she had never acted before. It’s like, either you have it or you don’t, and there’s a rawness that comes from not being a trained actor, with kids like that. She was amazing.
She was only 12 when you found her, and in the States, that would significantly restrict the amount of time you could work with her. Do you have the same restrictions in Australia?
DANNY: Yeah, she started to do tutoring and school stuff…
MICHAEL: …on set for a certain amount of time. So it was about catering to that, and also structuring the movie. We made sure the heavier scenes came later in the shoot, because it’s one thing to act, and it’s another to do those kinds of scenes with people around and things like that. We wanted to find the best way for her to feel creatively comfortable to be able to perform in those situations. But yeah, there are all these rules regarding working with children.
Do you know if any of the scenes particularly hit home with her?
DANNY: I know she has said that in terms of grief and loss, she’d experienced it herself. She wished that she’d learned to speak Japanese earlier so she could have a proper conversation with her grandfather. That was a really deep and vulnerable thing to share. So I think she related a lot to Piper. And when you’re designing these characters and collaborating with these sorts of actors, it’s about allowing them to be as authentic as they want to be, giving them the room to change dialogue or pick their wardrobe–whatever can help them feel real.
Did Wong and Billy Barratt have time to bond before they shot the film?
DANNY: That was such an important part of the process. All the rehearsals, building out the characters and allowing them to bond, acting out scenes that weren’t even in the movie, or going to, like, a sports match together. They went as Andy and Piper, brother and sister.
MICHAEL: Yeah, Billy took Sora to activities, and would guide her and help her. Because he’s a child actor as well, and started around the same age as her, he understands the emotions that come with that, so he was able to help and support her. It really was like a brother-sister relationship off the screen, and that rehearsal process was integral to making that connection feel real.
How did you find a little actor to take on the very grueling role of Oliver, and who had parents who would allow him to go through so much bloody, horrible stuff?
DANNY: It was again about the auditions, and in that period, it was expressed that this was a violent film. The audition tapes come in, and you just know straightaway when you see the right one that that’s the character. Jonah’s tape came through, and I was like, “Oh my God, we’ve found him.” He was so incredible. There was no dialogue; it was all performance, non-verbally, him falling on the floor and reacting, and it was incredible. So we knew straightaway that we’d found Oliver. Both of his parents are actors, so they helped him get into character. They were on set with him, helping him find those moments and his rhythm.
MICHAEL: The most important thing is keeping it lighthearted on set, because you’re dealing with such heavy subject matter. And those violent scenes are actually always the most fun to film, and Jonah loved those scenes more than anything.
DANNY: But he’s not allowed to watch the movie in its entirety [both laugh].
DANNY: I’m not sure if his parents have spoken to him about that, but I know that he’s like, “Oh, I can’t even watch my own movie!” It’s like, “Sorry, when you’re older.”
MICHAEL: There’s a premiere tomorrow, and they said, “Jonah will come and introduce, but he can’t watch it.” So I think we’ll just all go to dinner or something, so he doesn’t get left out.
Danny and Michael Philippou.
How did you pull off his butcher knife scene?
DANNY: You always have different ways you can attack something like that. We did it in a bunch of different ways; we had foam knives, we built out his head as a prosthetic that we could put a real knife into, we built fake teeth to be chipped. And the audio is me actually chewing a real knife to get the sound.
MICHAEL: You have the main way to do it that you figure out, and then backups just in case that doesn’t work, because it’s always unpredictable. With practical effects, it may work and it may not work, but it went the way that we had envisioned it. So as Danny said, it was a foam knife that he was eating, and then we had a prosthetic head made where we could cut the lip and do those sort of nasty things.
The prosthetics work is excellent. Were those done by the same team from TALK TO ME?
DANNY: We had two teams. We had our people from TALK TO ME, which was M.E.G. [Make-up Effects Group], and they’re incredible. And we also had Scarecrow Studios [led by Larry Van Duynhoven] as well, who focused on different aspects. So it was fun to pit them against each other.
MICHAEL: Yeah, we would point out, “Hey, that head looks pretty good, right? You guys gonna top that?” “Yeah, we’ll do that, we’ll top that!” [Laughs]
DANNY: But they did jump between different things; everyone helped each other out.
Which team specialized in the Oliver stuff?
DANNY: That was Scarecrow, but they did a lot of other effects as well.
MICHAEL: Their primary focus was Oliver, because there was a lot of that–his transformation, his moments.
DANNY: Things like building out Andy’s head to hit the tiles in that bathroom scene, that was M.E.G. That corpse in the shed, that was M.E.G. And then Larry would help with different avenues as well, all the dummies. They did a bit of everything.
Sally Hawkins is inspired casting as Laura. Did you always have her in mind for that role?
DANNY: She was on the top of the list. She was number one, and we thought it would be impossible to get her. She had never really done a full-on horror film or horror character, and she’s such a powerful actor, I thought the idea of her saying yes was just not possible. But she loved the script, and didn’t look at it as a genre film. She’s just looked at the role and connecting with the character. She was so incredible to work with, we loved her.
MICHAEL: It wasn’t written for Sally. It was written like a different character, with a different sort of person in mind, not necessarily any specific actor. But then when we were going through casting lists, like Danny said, she was at the top. Because every film she does is different; she’s so great at different roles. And she has this naturally warm, loving, paternal feeling about her, so an inversion of that was exciting. We’re so happy she said yes. She’s awesome.
Hawkins maintains a certain sympathy for Laura despite everything she does. How did you work with her to maintain that connection to the audience?
DANNY: It was always the idea to design a character you uncomfortably empathize with. And the sort of character work she did, coming in breaking down every single scene, talking about the motivations and making it all feel real–it’s not just horror for horror’s sake. That effort she put in and the collaboration in bringing Laura to life made it feel really personal, really vulnerable.
MICHAEL: She acted her scenes in a human way, like Laura has lost her sanity but she badly craves a connection with her daughter again, and is willing to go to great lengths for it.
DANNY: That’s also what’s amazing about psychobiddy films, if you look at WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? or other movies in that vein. They’re not necessarily evil people, but the world has been evil to them, and it twists them into someone else.
What were some of the lessons you learned from making TALK TO ME that you brought to bear on BRING HER BACK?
DANNY: I think the biggest lesson was with music.
MICHAEL: We wanted to not have that process just happen at the end of the film. We wanted it to be ingrained in the script, almost. Every other department gets this long amount of time, from the beginning of the process–the HODs, costumes, makeup, all that stuff is thought about in preproduction. But music happens at the end; there’s a window there for sound and music. We wanted the music to start earlier. So we sent our amazing composer, Cornel Wilczek, the script, and he gave us demos, without seeing anything, just based on what he thought the sound was, and there were so many amazing things there that we were able to draw inspiration from and use while we were shooting. That was what I was most excited about.
And then, we wanted more shooting time. TALK TO ME was a five-week shoot, it was so quick. We wanted to have more time, but always, there’s not enough time.
DANNY: It’s like, give us more time for those practical effects, and being able to pull off rain practically in the daytime. All that sort of stuff is very time-consuming.
Did having the tighter story. focus make things a little easier, since you were not in quite as many locations with as many people? DANNY: It was harder [laughs]. It was like, when you’re shooting outside, you can’t fake shade, and we didn’t have the budget to put up big things and block out the sun. So there were certain times of day we could shoot. Like, it had to be overcast, the sun had to sink behind a hill so that we could create that feeling and not have hard shadows and things like that.
MICHAEL: There were all these practical, logistical things that you wouldn’t even think about. Shooting with rain–we’re probably never going to do it again.
The house’s pool has a very specific, odd look. Did you have to build that, or did you find that at the location?
DANNY: That was one of the big concerns with the location scouting. We wanted a place where the pool was at the heart of it, and for the pool shed to be the soul. So the pool shed was built on location; that didn’t exist, that wasn’t there. The pool was there; we removed the fencing, and then we tiled it. We spent, like, four days tiling this pool to have the exact shape and color we wanted, with the circle in the heart of it.
MICHAEL: We found that house, and thank God, our amazing production designer Vanessa Cerne was able to adapt it to what we needed. But it was funny: The house is in, like, public. There’s a walkway that goes through the front yard. So there were always people. You’re trying to be discreet, but when you have 30 film trucks there, people were wondering what was going on. There were always people around watching. We always tried to be aware of that when we were shooting, because they had their phones out and we didn’t want them to spoil anything.
For the two of you, what kind of progression does BRING HER BACK make from TALK TO ME. What next step did you want this movie to represent for you?
DANNY: I really wanted it to be more character-focused. That was a big thing, to focus and put a lens on the people, and work a different tone or a different feel, and not be scared of a buildup or a snowball or a slow burn. Naturally, as YouTubers, the instinct is to be like Bang! Bang! Bang! all the way through, and TALK TO ME sort of was. So that was our main challenge.
MICHAEL: We wanted to commit to a different type of horror film. That goes against our instincts, coming from that background, but we were aiming to commit to that and explore a different way of telling a story.
What’s next for you? Any more horror projects in the works?
MICHAEL: Yeah, we’re working on a documentary right now that we’ve been shooting over the last year and a half. We had to pause it when we went into BRING HER BACK, but the second half of this year, we’ll be focused on finishing it. And then…
DANNY: Another horror film, come on! We definitely want to make some more horror films.
MICHAEL: The doc is about death match wrestling, which is like professional wrestling, but a really extreme version. Very graphic, lots of blood. That’s what this shirt [he’s wearing during the interview] is, one of the wrestlers we’re including, Jonny Yedro. We’ve been following different people to find out why they do this kind of wrestling, because it’s so dangerous and so risky. What draws people to this? It’s something we’ve been fascinated with since we were kids. So going into that world has been very cool.
