“Welcome to your new home”, Australian woman Laura (Sally Hawkins) tells her new foster children Andy and Piper. Billy Barratt and Sora Wong play the two stepchildren, and just like their dad, Laura prefers Piper too. That leaves Andy to start a bond with Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), Laura’s son with tendencies to eat anything. Andy learns those tendencies the hard way, making Laura push back and ask Andy for their privacy. That’s only going to make Andy more curious, suspecting that Laura has ulterior, horrific motives against Piper.

That’s the basic premise for the horror film Bring Her Back from directors Michael and Danny Philippou. It’s not the best introduction to their work, that designation being to the queer classic The Babadook. And yes, I should also watch The Babadook but from what I gander, they twist horror tropes. They’re not the first directors to work with these like family members not acting like they should. What I’m seeing on screen, though, is a unique interpretation of strangeness exaggerated for the big screen.

I’ll get to the ways that this film is unique in good ways, but let’s start with what I believe it does incorrectly. Backing up a bit, after Bring Her Back ended, I talked to some other critics who had their own valid opinions. I’ll let them answer for themselves, but in my opinion, it feels like it’s showing its tricks up its sleeves too damn early. It already shows what’s wrong with Laura, which doesn’t help suspend disbelief in how she’s a qualified foster.

To reinforce the fact that this is a horror film, Bring Her Back adds some necessary supernatural elements. It introduces a Russian cult before two stepchildren and a kooky single mom ever. The decision to root the film in reality makes sense but that brings more questions than answers. A woman relying on the occult to bring her dead daughter back makes sense for me. But Laura being an ex-cop doesn’t answer why only gets one visit from CPS or whatever its’ Australian equivalent of that.

Again, I’m never going to buy everything that Bring Her Back is selling with a few exceptions. One, that I’ll always respect a horror film that shows brutality without any filters that I can notice. There’s a scene where Laura hits Piper and the sound design of it alone will give viewers chills. And one can’t go wrong with depicting cannibalistic Russian cults that it depicts through VHS tapes. Lastly, the ‘horror’ shots aren’t cheap shock cuts and are actually visceral, just as I ask.

Watch Bring Her Back in select Canadian theatres.