There's no shortage of YouTubers that try and transition from making YouTube videos into movies. A lot of channels have tried to take that plunge before, but almost every single time it crashes and burns and is always just a fruitless endeavor that is only good for pointing and laughing and shooting spitballs. But there is one channel that has done it extraordinarily well. Rockaraka, Danny and Michael Filippo. I I hope I didn't butcher their last name. I'm never entirely sure how to say their last name. They made a horror movie called Talk to Me, which I think is an absolute slapper of a film. And now they've just released their second horror film, their second A24 horror flick, Bring Her Back, which I actually think is even better than Talk to Me. It's a very different film. It doesn't try and do the same things. It is still a horror film, but it's more akin to something like Hereditary. And I think a lot of people are going to be making that comparison with this film. And as all of you know, Hereditary is like my favorite horror movie. I think that is a masterpiece all the way up until like the last 10 minutes where I think it kind of eats some major ass. It just goes into like really big horror cliches, which a lot of people really don't like my take on. They That's a bit of a spicy take for me. But I just really don't like the last 10 minutes. It falls into just like a Blumbhouse schllock fest at the end. Even though I like the reason it happens and I also like the actual final like last couple scenes, but where they just go through like the haunted house of like banging head on wall, naked dude with winky out [ __ ] wiener hanging. Like I think that was a little lame, but I still think Hereditary is one of the best horror films in general. And Bringing Her Back feels a lot like Hereditary did where it's not trying to like jump scare you and get you with like a boo. You've been startled. Get spooked, loser. It's going for like a very slow, constant, anxietybuilding, tension, like unnerving, disturbing experience. It does it, I think, really, really well. It's a movie mainly focused on grief and coping with the loss of a loved one. I I think it's actually like a really thoughtprovoking film, which I didn't expect at all going into this. Talk to Me I thought was a really good movie, but it's pretty simple. They have a a haunted hand basically that they can dap up and take a addicting journey into the spirit realm and get possessed for a little while and then snap right back into it until something goes ary. This though was very very different and I really appreciate that they didn't just try and do the same thing again. You know that was so good I'll just try it a second time type deal. So to break it down, Bring Her Back is about a brother and sister who just lost their father in a very traumatic way. The sister is visually impaired. She can see shapes and lights, but not much beyond that. And they are now put in foster care of a woman who had a daughter that she recently lost. And she also has another kid staying with her in the foster program. And things are uh a little off about this woman, Laura. She's really sweet, like really nice, but in a way that's off-putting. The acting in this movie I actually thought was phenomenal. So when you have a character like Laura who's like really bubbly and like don't you got a boo boo? Do you need me to kiss it? Do you I'll do anything to make anyone happy. Like it's supposed like it's everything she's saying is really nice and caring but you can tell there's something very sinister about her and as it continues to progress she's very manipulative. So Laura Hello Io. I know it was a good movie wasn't it? you didn't get to see it, but I'm sure you can feel my excitement for the film. Point is, the acting is great and it helps you get invested in the characters like that. That's what I'm getting at here. But I want to get into it more like deeper into the spaghetti and meatballs. So, spoiler warning here. I've been really enjoying doing these reviews while talking about spoilers, just [ __ ] freeing the nipple and letting all the thoughts out here. So, Laura, I think, is a character. She's obviously the villain, but it's a villain that you can really kind of almost understand to a certain degree. She's lost her daughter. That is one of the worst things that can happen to a parent. And she will do anything for the chance to see her daughter again. What parent wouldn't? and she stumbled across these videotapes that have some kind of satanic ritual that can transfer the soul of like a demon or a demon can transfer the soul of a lost loved one into another body. So, she's watching the tapes and learning how the process goes, which is why she has the other child there, Ali. He's not part of the foster program, or at least he's not supposed to be. and she's putting the demon inside of his body so that way he can take his take her daughter's soul and put it inside the body of the uh the sister her name is Piper. It's a plotline that we've seen explored before like I have seen horror movies with a similar concept but not executed this well because this film does what those failed to do. It actually makes you care a lot and has a lot to say about grief in general. Plus, it's shot really well. So, there's some very creative scenes here and some really good gore and grossness to it that makes it just feel kind of like like almost like squeamish at times, especially with Olly. Like there's a scene where Ollie is like biting on a knife and his skin is tearing as the brother Andy is watching, horrified, wondering what the [ __ ] is going on with this kid. And it presents to you a good mystery though. Though I think most people from the title of the film and immediately upon seeing these tapes will connect the dots of what the mother Laura is trying to do here. It doesn't matter cuz that's not the actual like big discovery of the mystery per se. I think it's pretty obvious from the jump once that's established which is early on. It's a matter of how do we stop it? She's really good at gaslighting, manipulating Piper and Andy and putting them against each other where she starts to like frame Andy for like abusing her and kind of separates the two of them so it puts this barrier up so it makes it hard for Andy who starts to get the sense that something's wrong after seeing everything Ollie's doing. Like it is just done so well and it's not a film that's like super slow with like glacial pacing where it feels like nothing's happening except for like trauma dumping back and forth or anything. The film is constantly moving and it's showing you disturbing imagery and disturbing scenes. Like I mentioned, Olly with the knife or another scene where Oie is getting like more and more swollen, like he's starting to like [ __ ] puff up like he's about to explode like an Elden Elden Ring enemy any moment now. And then he gets like really hungry, just gluttonous. So he starts like eating his own flesh, like tearing it from the bone. He starts like eating the wood countertop. And I think it was pretty great. There were a couple people in the theater I heard audibly go like, "Oh," during a couple of those scenes. So, it's definitely eliciting the response the directors wanted here. I really think another thing that helped them a lot when it comes to those scenes is how they're filmed. Like, it's just so meticulous and it like they linger on it, just letting it like marinate, letting you stew on what you're seeing and just how like gross and uncomfortable it is. I I just really think this movie is like a full-blown banger. I was very impressed with this movie. I also think there's a lot to like chew on here. Not even making like a joke calling back to like the countertop scene. I mean, like there is really like a lot in this that isn't just spoonfed to you. Even though you know Laura's intention, she's studied these tapes and she is now trying to put into practice this ritual of transferring a soul into another body so she can be reunited with her daughter that was gone too soon from her. There is a lot that happens that there's like breadcrumbs that you can start to piece together other things. For example, was Andy being drugged by Laura? We see like this creatine She pours it out towards the end of the film when she's told or when she finds out a social worker is about to visit. And we have seen Andy like passing out and like drooling all over himself in his sleep and he's like wetting the bed and stuff like that. And you can write that off as like maybe trauma from seeing his father pass away in such a horrifying fashion. But then when you see that quick lit literally like 2 second like blurb of her pouring out creatine when trying to clean up the place for the social worker, you start to ask why would she do that? Well, maybe she drugged him. Like there's just so much like that in this film. And it doesn't follow the path that you think it's going to follow. Like I just think it's such a good movie. I I was very impressed. I don't think it's perfect, though. And here I want to get into my biggest complaint. And unfortunately, just like Hereditary, it's a bit of the ending. At the end of the film, I do find that it was a bit underwhelming how after everything Laura has done for this ritual, she eventually just decides she can't go through with it. Now, I think it's great that Piper herself like fought back and was like actively, you know, defying Laura and trying to save herself, but ultimately what happens is Laura just can't do it cuz she's supposed to mimic the death of how her daughter passed, which was drowning. So, she is trying to drown Piper and then after getting scratched, she kind of just she just can't do it anymore. It's too much for her after she's already killed a bunch of people and done unforgivable things. She now at the very end backs out of it and then Piper escapes and then the ritual is kaput, the demon gets expelled, that kind of thing. I still think it's a nice conclusion. I think it's a great ending, but I couldn't help but feel a little underwhelmed to watch her just decide, all right, we're we're pumping the brakes. We're done. Like it makes sense. The reason she did that makes total sense because she she watched her daughter drown and now she is actively drowning this girl that reminds her of her daughter. So it's a very hard thing for her to do and you can see her struggling with that as she's doing it. But she's still like committed to doing it and she has still done all this planning for so long to do it. Killed so many people for it and then at the very end not going through with it. It just feels like I don't know. I I would have liked, you know, Piper to overcome this this obstacle and defeat Laura or some kind of like karmic justice for Laura, which I thought they were kind of building to when it came to what happened with Andy. Uh, but I don't know. I I just couldn't help but feel like that wasn't amazing there, but everything else around it was. So, it's not like a massive complaint, and by no means does it ruin the movie or even take away from the film. It's just my only like criticism of it. But yeah, I think Bring Her Back is an absolute mustwatch for horror fans. I would comfortably put this up here with something like a Hereditary. I I did really like it a lot. I don't think it's as good as Hereditary, but I think it's definitely in a conversation with it, at least for my personal, you know, horror movie top films of the modern age. So, yeah, that's really about it. So, yeah.