Nearly two years after bludgeoning the box office with 2023’s Talk to Me, brothers Danny and Michael Philippou are reuniting with A24 for Bring Her Back. Although their highly anticipated followup arrives in just two months — May 30, 2025, to be exact — there’s still an impressive air of mystery to the project. Between the logline and the unnerving 65-second teaser that dropped in February, we know that two-time Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins plays a reclusive foster mother to a brother and sister who may have stumbled into a “terrifying ritual.”

Well, this past Friday, Bloody Disgusting had the opportunity to get a first look at what the Philippous are conjuring up … and they’re not missing a beat. At the ultra swanky NeueHouse Hollywood, the two brothers stormed a small stage with the contagious camaraderie that’s only matched by their chaos on celluloid. “We thank you guys so much for coming out,” Michael exclaimed. “It’s amazing that you all came out for this. Thank you, thank you.” Warm words for a Warholian hell of a room, where spiraling, ritualistic found footage cocooned the crowd.

But isn’t that the dichotomy what makes the Philippous, aka RackaRacka, such an enigma? Or why so many critics and horror hounds in 2023 shook their heads and wondered, How the hell did two YouTube creators create one of the most terrifying films of this decade? What’s the old adage? Nice guys finish last? Well, in this case, these nice Australian boys get the last laugh, at least if we’re to glean anything from the two clips and the official trailer they previewed. Their brand of look-away-look-away horror feels even more primal and inescapable.

And they know it. “The clip we’re about to show is based around Oliver, the kid who is, for some reason, starving and he’s mute,” Danny teased. “Selectively,” Michael added. Danny agreed, “Yes, he’s a little bit strange, and we’re going to see just how strange he is.” The two Wonka smiles they wore spoke volumes, like a bright yellow warning sign ahead of a rocky, nasty curve, or perhaps one of those grim grinning ghosts pulling you to the next room of the Haunted Mansion. “Roll the clip,” Michael screamed, and so did we.

Without spoiling too much, said clip — the second shown and inarguably the centerpiece of the night — involves a slice of cantaloupe, a sharp butcher knife, and possibly the most gruesome mouth injury since that unlucky trick or treater at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital in 1981’s Halloween II. You know what’s coming, but that doesn’t soften the sights in the slightest. No, as they employed all throughout Talk to Me, the Philippous ensconce the scene in a wall of sound that’d give Phil Spector a shot to the head. It’s delightfully disturbing.

An all-timer, if you will.

It works even better knowing the context. In the first clip, the Philippous set the stage by laying out the logline. We watch two foster teens — Billy Barratt and Sora Wong — meeting their new foster mother (Hawkins). But, it’s hardly the warm welcome the Philippous gave us in person. No, it’s an erratic meet and greet, exacerbated by booming music, an empty swimming pool, a mysterious memorial plate, and the eerily stoic Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) at the center. The palpable realization for the two teens is damning: This is home.

Themes of grief and trauma haunt both clips, not too dissimilar to the themes they explored on Talk to Me. However, there’s a heavier weight to the proceedings, no doubt heightened by this one-location setting and the apparent assertion that nowhere is safe. In fact, there’s reason to believe that the children may not even be able to escape. At one point, Oliver is carried out of the house, only he refuses to cross a white line, suggesting the supernatural may be at play in this home. Don’t ask me, though, the Philippous wisely stayed mum.

Instead, they extrapolated on the conceit of the film, particularly how it was influenced by a very real incident that happened to them. “We were in the middle of writing Bring Her Back,” Danny shared in the Q&A, “and my cousin lost her two year old, and we were in the hospital, and I was just seeing her on the bed, holding this kid, and the family were all around him, and they were holding his feet, and his hands, and his head, and his arms, and eventually, over time, everyone let him go. And my cousin was the last one to let him go.”

“Horror is a fun way to look at dark things like that,” Danny continued. “Like the idea of her never being okay ever again after that, that was an inspiration point. How far she would go, you know, to heal herself from it. And the idea of a never ending grief cycle is terrifying to me, and seeing raw grief like that is terrifying. And that just happened while we were writing. So, that became part of the screenwriting process, and it always is a way to express those things, or look at those things in a fun way. Hopefully it’s fun … it’ll probably not be.”

While that last sentiment may sound indecisive, the Philippous sound confident. That’s not an easy feat when you’re following up a blockbuster breakthrough the size of Talk to Me — let’s not forget, it became A24’s highest grossing horror film in the summer of 2023 with 92M at the box office. They’re self aware of these expectations, but also pragmatic.

“When we were first on set for Talk to Me, even the crew, didn’t take us seriously,” Danny explained. “Which is good,” Michael added. Danny continued, “But for this shoot, the crew had this respect, but internally, we came on set thinking we have no fucking idea what we’re doing. That’s how it feels. It’s just as unknown. It’s just as scary. It’s just as daunting.

“It was more anxiety ridden because you have A24 to let down. You have Sally Hawkins to let down. Everything that you do, there was an extra pressure to it. So, everything just goes out the window, and it feels like you’ve never made anything. And then you’re in the deep again, and you feel like you’re drowning again. And you’re like, ‘Oh, why the fuck did we put ourselves through this again?’ And then, at the end of it, you come out. You’re talking about it, the film’s done. It’s always a painful process, but a rewarding one.”

“Yeah, unless the film’s really bad,” Michael quickly joked. “But it’s really coming together, and we’re very happy with how it’s turning out.”

Yes, that’s present tense, as in the film is still being finished. They confirmed they’re 95% complete, dedicating these last gasps of time on the intricate sound design that has become one of their hallmarks. “We are discovering things as we’re going along,” Michael explained. “So, that’s right now. It’s fine tuning those things and really ironing them down.”

Danny added, “We’re creating unique sonic atmospheres for each character. Like close ups of their hands, getting a sense of touch, feeling things, and heightening those sounds. We even got obsessed with people’s breathing on this one, and it’s such a dangerous rabbit hole to go down. But there’s something about hearing a character’s breath up close that you naturally wouldn’t hear on film. It’s so much more personal. You can hear it. You can feel it. It’s an amazing way to convey emotions. Even for a possessed character, like certain breaths in, certain breaths out.”

Sound wasn’t the only rabbit hole the Philippous went spelunking through for Bring Her Back.

“It’s so funny going down the rabbit hole of some of that witchcraft stuff and how dark you can go,” Danny confessed. “I dressed up as a character named Trevor to meet with some other people online, and I had a long, black wig, mascara … I looked super, super in character. And then I would interview a couple of these people that would really, really believe this dark side of resurrection, and they’re looking to all that sort of stuff. There was one person I talked to that was convinced she could actually turn into a cat, which is so weird, but she believed it was real. It’s fascinating.”

What’s also fascinating is that, even after the discussion, even after the clips, and even after seeing the new official trailer, Bring Her Back still lingers in the shadows — and that is by design. “I watch trailers, I remember every shot in a trailer,” Michael argued, “and I find myself, when I’m watching the movie, waiting for those moments. And you’re like, ‘Okay, well, I know that they’re alive, because that hasn’t happened in this scene, you know?’ And it’s always that balance, because you want to sell the movie, but then you also don’t want to spoil it. A24 is on the same page. Trust me, the trailer doesn’t show the half of it.”

He’s not wrong. There’s nothing obvious about anything we’ve seen, and that was an exhilarating feeling coming out of this event. Yet what really got our blood boiling were the two filmmakers downplaying the cantaloupe scene we praised (and this writer hailed as an all-timer) earlier. Our recorder was off at that time, but during the cocktail hour that took place after, Danny and Michael both insisted upon even more horror ahead. In other words, as the bards behind Bachman Turner Overdrive sang: “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”. Stay tuned.

Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, and Sally-Anne Upton star in Bring Her Back, which A24 will release in theaters on May 30, 2025.