michael-kerrigan-526-124974

I'm no horror fan as a rule. I find the supernatural uninteresting, unless it's tongue in cheek with laughs (e.g. The Evil Dead - hey I'm a child of the 80s). What is so disturbing about Bring her back, is that it is horror but without the supernatural - in theory it 'could' happen. And this makes the horror all too real. For pretty much the last hour of the 100 minute running time I was lock jawed and have to admit let out a few loud squirms in the cinema - don't think I broke the code as you'd have to have a very hard stomach / emotional vacuum not to.... Probably the best horror film (that's not a horror film) I've ever seen. Brief synopsis - Sally plays Laura, a bereaved mother who fosters recently bereaved children to help them through their pain. Only Laura has a sinister plan for these children as she tries to come to terms with her own grief. No spoilers here but Sally deserves an Oscar nod for her combination of 'happy go lucky' and apparent evil sinister performance. She won't get an Oscar nom, of course, as 'horror' never does. Newcomer Sora Wong, is also superb as the partially sighted Piper, who is key to the troubling motivations of Laura. I'm not sure I can recommend this film cos it's one of those. It might be one to endure and admire rather than enjoy. For me though, it's my joint film of the year so far, along with A Real Pain. And 2 hours since I left the cinema I'm still freaked out!

Two sisters, September and July, are not your 'normal' kids. But what is normal anyway? It seems September has a hold over July, hence what September says, July has to follow. They are a two, and hence when one does something inexplicable, they both have to escape to Ireland with their mother. Mother herself has her own demons - how does she cope with her inexplicable children? The film is tense throughout but for the first hour, it's kinda conventional. And then September asks July to do something that we, the audience, are pleading NOOOOO! We realise that the September / July dynamic may not be what it seems.

September says - give this movie a chance, it is fabulous!

Sorry - but loads of reviews on here are suggesting disappointment at the ending. What do you want? A Hollywood ending where everything ties neatly into place? Toni Collete's eyes said it all and, yes, we are left to ponder what happened next. But that's a good thing. The whole film was wrapped in uncertainty, so the ending should too. And the film also makes you think... "what if it were me?"..... If you are good, you do the right thing and if you're bad you do the wrong thing, right? Not right. The film made you think about moral nuances such as family, fear, justice, injustice, career, inhibitions etc etc etc. It made you think "what would i do in that situation"? So for that I give it credit. I didn't want a police car chase at the end. The film was full of ambivalence and hence it needed an ambivalent ending. I give it credit for that. Yes, there were some hardly believable procedurals in there, but overall it worked. Nice one Clint - not in the same league as some of your other films, but if you bow out on this, crikey, what a career. Bravo.