Bring Her Back follows siblings Andy and Piper as they go into foster care after their father suddenly passes away. They are placed with a woman named Laura, who already has another foster child that seems a little bit off, somehow. As the kids try to stick together to mourn their father, Laura is trying to deal with her own grief in a shocking and disturbing way.

This movie makes you feel really bad, like really really bad. I think some movies are exceptional at making you feel bad with no reprieve, i.e. Angst (1986), High Tension (2003), Funny Games (1997). But in order to properly achieve a good feel-bad movie, there needs to be some TLC put into the filmmaking and/or the viewer needs to care about the characters, whether they are good or bad people. In this film, I didn’t see much love of the craft put into the style of editing or shooting, and although I hated seeing the kids get hurt in this movie, I didn’t care that much for the characters. Maybe that’s due to minimal backstory, or maybe the script was not connecting for me.

That’s not to say this isn’t a good film, per-say, because it is a horror movie unlike I’ve seen in awhile, it makes you feel really bad and it is pretty original while also utilizing tried and true horror tropes. I wanted to cry at the end of this movie. There were a lot of times where I audibly said what the fuck. It’s insane, vile, sad, and creepy but I just can’t say it’s amazing. It’s more shocking than anything, it wants to shock, and shock it did.

I kind of want to rate this higher but I was just so baffled by all of it, and by the time something happens I really didn’t want to watch it anymore. I think this may be an evil film.

7/10