The Replacement Ending Is Ludicrously Overblown
This review contains The Replacement finale spoilers. Praise be for the three-parter. Even when the narrative wheels come off, as they did in spectacular fashion in The Replacement’s ludicrously overblown finale, you’re still quids-in when it comes to your time investment. A dodgy last hour after two decent instalments is forgivable, especially when it’s all […]
The post The Replacement Ending Is Ludicrously Overblown appeared first on Den of Geek.
Danny and Michael Philippou were already well known in the YouTube community when they took Hollywood by storm with their A24 horror hit, Talk to Me. That haunting supernatural horror explored grief and loss through the lens of a wild party game, which saw teens take turns being possessed by a strange artifact.
During the trailer launch for and sneak peak of their follow-up, Bring Her Back—a film that follows foster kids Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) as they are taken in by an eccentric and possibly dangerous woman (Sally Hawkins)—the pair shared that just like their massively successful first feature, Bring Her Back was shaped by a devastating loss in the Australian twins’ own lives.
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“In the middle of writing Bring Her Back my cousin lost her two year old,” Danny Philippou shared. “We were in the hospital, and I was just seeing her on the bed, holding this kid, and the family were all around him, and they were holding his feet and his hands and his head and his arms, and eventually, over time, everyone let him go. My cousin was the last one to let him go.”
“The idea of her never being okay ever again after that, that was an inspiration point,” He continued. “And how far she would go to heal herself from it. The idea of a never-ending grief cycle is terrifying to me.”
If it seems like Talk to Me and Bring Her Back are atmospherically and thematically connected, that’s because they were developed concurrently, both inspired by the same losses, as well as Micheal’s love for The Exorcist.
“I think it’s the greatest film ever made so that makes me lean towards possession automatically,” Michael told a group of journalists. “There’s something so terrifying [about it], it feels so real to see somebody where something else is inhabiting their bodies. Connecting the stuff that makes you feel uncomfortable or nervous, or freaks you out and then express those things on screen.”
Danny added, “Then leaning into how far you’d go to bring someone back that you love. Those deep questions that you wonder and think about. That’s something that we didn’t fully get out with Talk to Me, so this is another iteration.”
As Bring Her Back went into pre-production another tragedy struck as a close family friend died at the age of only 23. Alerted by their mother, the twins were suddenly once again crafting a film while dealing with the death of a loved one.
“The grief was so raw that in the moment we didn’t really have time to properly process it,” Danny admitted. “We were doing pre-production meetings, then we started shooting, and there was no time to properly sort through those emotions. They sort of poured themselves out in the script and in conversations with Sally, so that bled into the character of Laura and scenes that were meant to be scary suddenly turned sad. So that just becomes part of the process, I think there’s a rawness in it that wasn’t in Talk to Me.”
To the brothers, horror offers a lighter way to explore dark themes and experiences like the loss of their cousin’s child, even becoming “fun” if they approach it in the right way.
From what we saw—two clips and the recently released first full trailer—Bring Her Back is a far darker and more somber take on horror than their previous endeavor, which still freaked out audiences around the world. According to Micheal, horror was always in their blood and their unusual childhood meant that the brothers carved a bloody path to adulthood and filmmaking.
“Our parents were never home,” he said. “Our grandfather raised us to a certain point, and he passed away when we were really young. And once he did, there was no parental supervision, and our childhood was Lord of the Flies. There’s footage of us as 10 year olds covered in blood, like actual blood, from backyard wrestling and fucking each other up that way, it just became our love language: violence and psychopathy-ness.”
Perhaps that’s why Bring Her Back centers on three children, Andy, Piper, and Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips) thrown into a world of violence and ritual under the watchful—and potentially malevolent—eye of grieving mother Laura. Working with Hawkins was something of a dream come true for the brothers who eagerly gushed about her performance. And it marks a landmark moment for the actress too as she ventures into horror for the very first time.
“We did not think she would say yes, we sent her the script, and then she got back right away and said she was in love with it, how much it meant to her, how much she connected to it.” Danny recalled. Her role was inspired by so-called “Psycho-biddy movies” like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Lady in a Cage, and Straight Jacket. Thus Bring Her Back promises to show a side of Hawkins audiences have yet to see.
“I’m in awe of her. She’s genuinely incredible. And in certain scenes so terrifying as well,” Danny teased.
Bring Her Back hits theaters on May 30 2025.
The post Bring Her Back: Philippou Brothers Reveal Real-Life Trauma That Inspired New A24 Horror appeared first on Den of Geek.
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