Summer of Horror: Bring Her Back, Weapons, & Together
Minor spoilers
CW: Discussion of child abuse
Horror this summer has been of high quality. Mostly. Weapons has triumphed with critics and audiences, and Bring Her Back has introduced a school of fantastic young actors to a mainstream audience. There has, however, been disappointments. Together spent a long time raising audience anticipation through memes and clips but fell flat at the final hurdle: constructing a comprehensive plot. There's much to learn from these films when understanding the good, the bad, and the ugly in modern horror cinema.
Bring Her Back
****
18
1 hour 39 minutes
Sally Hawkins and Jonah Wren Phillips in Bring Her Back
Directed by: Danny & Michael Philippou
Written by: Danny Philippou & Bill Hinzman
Starring: Sally Hawkins as Laura; Billy Barratt as Andy; Sora Wong as Piper; Jonah Wren Phillips as Ollie
Produced by: Samantha Jennings & Kristina Ceyton
Bring Her Back sees two adolescent half-siblings -- Piper and Andy -- take up residence with a foster carer after the sudden death of their father. Their new home is with Laura, an eccentric woman mourning the death of her daughter, who, like Piper, was partially sighted. In the home with them is the mute Ollie, who wears an empty stare and is kept indoors by a paranoid Laura. Piper is quickly favoured by Laura, but older brother Andy is an unwanted presence.
Despite being familiar to many from such family films as Paddington and Wonka, Sally Hawkins is no stranger to more gothic cinema after her breathtaking performance in 2017's The Shape of Water. But Bring Her Back is by far a much bleaker supernatural soiree. Here, she has the challenge of supporting a young cast. Lucky for Hawkins, these young actors are mind-blowingly talented. Billy Barratt (Andy) and Sora Wong (Piper) bounce off each other brilliantly as a protective older half-brother and feisty, partially sighted younger sister. The opening scene vividly depicts not only the casually cruel ableism Piper faces from her peers, but the well-meaning white lies the caring Andy tries to shield her with. The representation of Piper's disability and the varying attitudes towards it is something rarely addressed with such thoughtful precision in cinema; particularly so, horror cinema. While a disabled character might usually be used as a troupe or token, in Bring Her Back she acts as a centrepiece to the plot. She wants to be independent, but she feels held back by Andy's precautions. She wants to feel accepted, but this vulnerability is manipulated by her disturbed foster mother, Laura.
Sora Wong and Billy Barratt in Bring Her Back
The standout performance, however, was that of Jonah Wren as the zombified Ollie. It's impossible not to watch every movement of Ollie's with grave anticipation. Again, this character could have easily fallen into an overdone horror troupe à la creepy child, but the way Ollie is both written and performed defies these clichés with impressive results.
The Philippou brothers use Bring Her Back as a vehicle to expand the universe first begun in their 2022 horror Talk to Me. Whilst not a direct sequel, the two films share the same supernatural lore. As not-so-subtly implied by the title, Bring Her Back focuses upon the resurrection element of this lore, and takes two different perspectives of grief -- one that mirrors Mia's in Talk to Me, a desperate desire to be reunited with a deceased loved one, and another that represents the conflicting emotions one may have towards an imperfect family member. Not long after Bring Her Back's release, a website was unveiled, deepening this backstory further. Enter at your own risk.
Bring Her Back is an upsetting film. It's probably not something to you'd want to rewatch on a regular basis (unless you're the kind of weirdo that enjoys seeing children suffer). Its final moments leave you contemplating some of the realities this film might be portraying: the failures of the foster system to effectively vet its carers, the penalisation of young delinquents who wish to better themselves. It's highly recommended, but perhaps not for those who may have trauma associated with these subjects.
Weapons
****1/2
18
2 hours 8 minutes
Amy Madigan in Weapons
Directed by: Zach Cregger
Written by: Zach Cregger
Starring: Cary Christopher as Alex Lilly; Amy Madigan as Gladys Lilly; Julia Garner as Justine Gandy; Josh Brolin as Archer Graff; Benedict Wong as Marcus Miller; Austin Abrams as James Anthony; Alden Ehrenreich as Paul Morgan
Produced by: Roy Lee; Zach Cregger; Miri Yoon; J.D. Lifshitz; Raphael Margules
In a small Pennsylvanian town, seventeen children go missing at 2:17am. All are caught on doorbell cameras, running away with outstretched arms. All eyes turn to the children's elementary school teacher, Justine Gandy. She attempts to escape the prying eyes of her community, but she feels her hand is forced to investigate the conundrum of the missing children to prove her innocence.
Weapons is an absolute delight to watch. There are laughs. There are jumpscares. There's a satisfying finale. Balancing the lines between fear, mystery, gore, and humour, Cregger finds a way to maintain your attention for a full two hours by switching narratives and providing an insightful commentary into the nature of child neglect. Through the eyes of a troubled teacher (Justine) we're introduced to the grieving and traumatised town of Maybrook. Justine has become the chosen culprit for the seventeen missing children. But we don't have to be told she didn't do it; through her clumsy, impulsive, desperate actions, we can tell this character is far too thoughtless to get away with such a complex crime.
So, to solve this mystery, we're shown the perspectives of different town members: a mourning father searching for answers; a corrupt police officer acting on his own bastardised sense of justice; an exhausted school principal; but perhaps most interestingly so, a homeless opioid addict (James), and a struggling child (Alex).
Julia Garner in Weapons
The choice to include James' perspective is original and clever. If there's anyone in Maybrook even more untrustworthy to the townspeople than Justine, it's the homeless guy rough sleeping in the woods. Pitiable enough to not be a suspect in the children's disappearance, but too reliant on theft and dishonesty to be a dependable source of intel. His viewpoint not only provides us with some of the major exposition points for plot progression but can also be seen as a potential foreshadowing of Alex's future. As an elementary school student forced to shoulder a massive burden of being the only child in his class not to disappear, Alex is the target of many side-eyes, but very little help. Even Justine, one of the only people to visit Alex's home, only checks on him for her own attempt at absolution. James not only serves a narrative purpose but shows the consequences of failed safeguarding.
There are few points in which Weapons falls short, but they are visible to the eagle-eyed. Justine's actions do raise some questions of plausible deniability; however, they can be explained with the reasoning of character development. Her choice to exit her house when threatened with the possibility of harm and later follow a child home when accused of kidnapping seventeen others is still somewhat difficult to justify. Still, it can be seen as a forgivable oversight. There's also the issue of Marcus and his partner having an underdeveloped storyline. Weapons is a bleak film with a wicked sense of humour, and although he provided a large amount of the comic relief, Marcus still deserved a little more joy than the stress he was bundled with. But again, this could be explained away with character building and noted as a matter of personal taste.
Together
**
15
1 hour 42 minutes
Alison Brie in Together
Directed by: Michael Shanks
Written by: Michael Shanks
Starring: Dave Franco as Tim; Alison Brie as Millie
Produced by: Dave Franco; Alison Brie; Mike Cowap; Andrew Mittman; Erik Feig; Max Silva; Julia Hammer; Timothy Headington
In Together, a couple (Tim and Millie) at a relationship crossroads move into a new home in a remote area for the sake of Millie's new job as an elementary school teacher. Her partner Tim is left struggling to stay in touch with his bandmates, putting pressure on his already difficult career as a musician. The two find themselves drifting apart -- that is, until a mysterious force drags the duo closer together.
Together tried very, very hard with its marketing strategy. In some ways, it worked. The Instagram algorithm seemed to favour their choice of meme and clip-based marketing, and they had Alison Brie working overtime interviewing with content creators. A wise choice: Alison Brie is a very likeable, charismatic person. Having her and husband Dave Franco lead this couples' comedy-horror was a fun casting choice. The practical effects, too, were mind-blowing. Credit where credit is due, the animatronics, makeup, and prosthetics were masterfully combined with CGI to create a lot of gross moments.
But Together failed to live up to the hype built up by its marketing team. The film takes a long time to get to the point audiences are all waiting for, and it doesn't feel suspenseful -- instead, it feels like wading through a bog for an hour before we reach the scenes already revealed extensively on social media. Because of this, the set-up is essentially pointless. We don't need to see the search for the missing couple. We don't need to see the awkward engagement scene. It should've just begun with them moving into their idyllic but creepy new home. Even with this long set-up, the lore surrounding the supernatural co-dependency is gravely underdeveloped. Horror is a genre known for testing the boundaries of plausible deniability, but even Together burst at these seams. It was trying too hard to make some kind of deep point about 'other halves' and 'two becoming one’ and consequently said absolutely nothing of substance.
Dave Franco and Alison Brie in Together
Worst of all were the characters. Even Alison Brie couldn't save the shoddy script provided, because her character (Millie) was so two-dimensional. But Millie did not even compare to her wet blanket of a partner, the mediocre musician, Tim. There was somewhat of an attempt to build Tim's backstory. His dad died, his mum went crazy, he has nightmares about it, blah blah blah, commitment issues. It was trying to create some kind of reasoning for the couple's relationship problems, but it just didn't feel relevant enough to the overarching plot of the two getting meshed together. Again, because so many of the final scenes were revealed on social media, the character development became lazy and contrived. It somehow wrote itself into a circle of both over and under exposition.
Also foreshadowed by the mismanaged marketing were the cringeworthy attempts at humour littered throughout the movie; the moments that were meant to be funny were met with utter silence in the cinema, and the moments that were meant to be disturbing received laughter. Together is a case study of how not to do horror-comedy.
Horror isn't a genre that thrives in the superficial. Providing a surface-level insight into a culturally significant topic such as co-dependency will earn you superficial success but fail to build you a reputation as a competent filmmaker. Unfortunately, this seems to be the trajectory for the creators of Together. But spending time on characters, casting exciting new talent alongside seasoned professionals, and thoughtfully plotting out key events and themes will bring audiences back to your work over and over again, shown in this year's releases by the Philippou brothers and Zach Cregger. It's important not to rely too heavily on marketing, whilst also not underestimating its significance. Too much will spell disappointment for your audiences; just the right amount will provide delightful satisfaction.
