Bring Her Back (2025)--My Take On The Movie With Ending Spoilers!
Plot: After their father's death, Andy and Piper go to live in a foster home and uncover strange events tied to a ritual.
Quick Movie Review
Visceral and unforgettable, Bring Her Back has all the right elements to make this an enjoyable viewing. What takes the story forward is the impeccable acting talent that will pull you into the movie and let you breathe freely only when the end credits roll.
BRING HER BACK Movie Plot
A blurry footage shows a girl being hung, after which another girl is apparently revived. The girl has a purplish mark under her eye.
We then meet Piper, who is a blind girl. She approaches a group of girls who mock her. Piper's brother Andy comes to assist her and takes her home.
At home, their father Phil is found dead in the shower. The event traumatizes the two of them. Wendy, a social worker, has Piper set up at a foster home and tells Andy that the woman isn't comfortable with taking in kids who have previously gotten into trouble. Piper learns that Andy had gotten into trouble years ago. He assures Wendy that he has reformed and to request the woman, Laura, to let him stay until he turns 18 in a few months and can take Piper's guardianship.
Wendy talks to Laura, who agrees, and the siblings pack off all their stuff. Andy tells Piper that a plane in the sky is probably their father going to heaven.
They drive off to the middle of nowhere, and Piper, who has very limited vision, tries to see the positive in their new house.
Laura greets them in a friendly manner but is clearly not pleased to see Andy. He notices the taped up edges of the rug and makes a comment about blind people. Laura gets aloof and says that yes, her daughter Cathy was blind as well, but she is now dead. Andy gets awkward.
They are then introduced to the cat, who accidentally runs out when Andy opens the door to check the backyard. The cat goes all the way to a drained out pool where a young boy is standing. As the cat begins to scratch the boy, Laura calls out just in time before the boy can hurt the cat back.
Laura introduces the two to Oliver, another boy who is living in the house and has the same purplish mark under his eyes as the young girl at the beginning of the movie. Laura begins to take everyone's height on the wall for some reason.
Piper is curious to know what Oliver is like. Andy lies to her about being friendly. Laura thinks it's okay to lie to Piper too and says that Oliver, who is her nephew, has red hair. Andy isn't happy that Laura is sort of mocking Piper's disability.
Piper is given Cathy's room, and Andy is given a room far from hers.
When everyone goes off to sleep, Laura watches the shaky footage of the ritual where the possessed person consumes the deceased, and then a second person is killed. The soul of the deceased is transferred into the second body.
Andy is unable to sleep and texts his friend, making fun of Oliver. Laura comes to speak to Andy, and when he's distracted, he takes his phone and reads his messages.
She isn't too happy that Andy and his friend are making fun of Oliver. Clearly, they are not off to a good start.
The next day, Laura leaves Oliver alone at home as she accompanies Piper and Andy to Phil's funeral.
Piper asks Andy how Phil looks, but he's unable to make eye contact since he's traumatized by the entire incident. He says "grapefruit," a code word between the two, which means they will be truthful to each other.
Laura notices this and forces Andy and Piper to see Phil again. She gets Andy to kiss his father but then wants him to do it on his lips. Andy declines, and Laura does it for him, saying it is tradition.
Later, in the car, while the two are sulking, Laura suggests that funerals don't have to be depressing and can instead be a celebration.
Andy and Piper allow Laura to celebrate their grief, which includes drinks, too. Andy isn't too okay with Piper drinking, but Laura tells them it's only one night.
After Piper passes out, Laura confides in Andy about how Cathy drowned in the pool, and Andy tells her that Phil was abusive towards him but he never did it after he married Piper's mother, and especially not in front of Piper. Andy doesn't want to tell Piper the truth about Phil because she has put him on a pedestal. In fact, Piper still sleeps with Phil's pillow so she can feel safe.
Andy goes to sleep, and we see Laura tend to Oliver. During his bath, his eyes turn red, and he appears to be in a trance.
Later, Laura takes a cup and pees into it. She then goes to Andy's room and pours it on his jeans.
In the morning, Andy thinks he has wet the bed. He takes all his clothes and goes to the washing machine but Laura is already there. Andy thinks it's because of his trauma, but Laura implies to Piper that Andy is regressing to his old ways.
Laura takes Piper out for a girls' day out. In the car, she tells Piper how Andy may need therapy.
At home, Andy considers taking a shower but has flashbacks of his father laying dead in the shower, and the sounds of water turn him off. He goes to the yard and takes a bath under a faucet. When he looks up, he sees Oliver staring at him. He waves, but Oliver doesn't wave back.
Andy wants to get to know him better and starts cutting a cantaloupe for him. Oliver doesn't speak, so Andy encourages him to talk by writing. Andy tries to he stylish by offering Oliver a piece on the end of the knife blade.
Andy is distracted again and hears metal crunching sounds. He turns and sees Oliver chewing on the knife blade. There's blood everywhere. When he tries to retrieve it, the knife cuts more into the jaw.
Panicked, Andy takes Oliver out of the house and crosses the chalk circle around the property. Oliver gets a seizure. Laura returns just then and screams at Andy. Instead of taking him to the doctor, she takes him inside the circle.
Poor Andy is traumatized again. He goes back into the kitchen and sees the note Oliver had written, splattered with blood. It says bird.
Andy is also covered in blood and has to take a shower. In the shower, he sees Phil come up to him and say that she will die in the rain. Andy is startled and slips and falls in the shower, hitting his head.
He wakes up in the hospital and asks for Piper. Laura tells him about his accident and that Piper is safe. He tells her about the warning he received, but Laura takes it lightly.
She returns home and brings Piper out in the rain to have fun. Later, when they go to dry off, Laura asks if Piper would want to stay on even after Andy turns 18. Piper tells her that she and her brother will find their own place, but that she will come visit Laura every weekend.
Laura is unhappy about the weekend visits. She then takes Piper to the shed and makes her feel something in the freezer. It turns out to be Cathy's corpse.
Andy returns home, but Laura is determined to keep Piper on and turn her against her brother. She has already told him about how aggressive he's been getting.
At night, Laura puts on Andy's body spray and enters Piper's room. She then punches her right in the eye. Piper gets up and cries.
The next morning, Andy wakes up from bad dreams and sees Laura tending to Piper. He demands to know who hit her. Laura insinuates that he did.
Andy tells Piper that he wasn't the one behind it, but Laura has already told her about Phil's abuse, and she thinks that Andy never healed from that.
Andy goes to find Oliver, who has been behaving odd. He's filming him when Laura tries to stop Andy. He argues with her and punches the wall on her side, but Laura pretends to be the one who is hit. She cries out, and Piper thinks her brother hurt her foster mother.
Andy keeps saying grapefruit and asks Piper to leave with him, but she declines.
Distraught, he heads to the police station.
Laura drops Piper to the rec center, then returns to subdue Oliver, who only calms down when she draws circles. But this time, he is even more unstable than before. He's already chewed on tables and destroying everything in the house. As Laura attempts to calm him, he takes a big bite out of her arm. As Laura bandages herself, Oliver begins to feed on strips of his skin as well. Laura manages to calm him down with drawing circles around him again and then takes him to go and feed on Cathy.
At the police station, Andy is patiently waiting to see Wendy when he sees a photo of a missing boy who looks like Oliver. But beneath it is written Connor Bird. Andy realizes that Oliver was trying to tell him his real identity when he wrote bird on the note and goes to see Wendy.
He tells her of his suspicions, but Wendy has known Laura a long time and doesn't believe him. Andy tells her he is ready to show her the truth.
BRING HER BACK Ending Explained
Wendy reluctantly allows Andy to take her to Laura's home. On the way, Andy sends Piper a voice mail telling her that he does love her and will look after her. He warns her about Laura and says Grapefruit.
Laura overhears the message since Piper doesn't have her phone on her. She begins to clean up the mess Oliver makes and hides her injuries.
When Wendy comes, Andy is drawn to the shed since he wants to look for Oliver as he is actually Connor. Laura spews lies about Andy, and Wendy buys it but then sees Laura's wounded arm.
At the same moment, Andy calls out. Laura, realizing the jig is up, tries to stop Wendy and frantically pleads with her to not tell anyone since she has found a way to "bring her back." Wendy realizes she's talking about Cathy and shrugs her off. She joins Andy and sees Oliver/Connor feeding on Cathy's corpse.
Wendy and Andy are running for it when Laura appears in her van and runs them over.
Andy is still alive when Laura turns his head and pushes it into a puddle, drowning him.
She drags both bodies inside and goes to pick up Piper. The coach wants to talk about the black eye, but Laura races Piper home.
Once in her room, Piper thinks she sees Andy but goes to feel him and thinks she feels Oliver. When she asks about him, Laura lies about his red hair. Piper is stunned since she hasn't felt any hair on her head. Laura did have a nephew called Oliver who did have red hair but is apparently not in touch with her.
She then starts to walk away but accidentally bumps into Andy's body. She is devastated to learn that he is no more but also that Laura is a liar.
She tries to run but knocks herself out in the process. Laura drags Piper into the pool, which has filled with rain water. Piper is wearing the cardigan Laura had given her, which also belonged to Cathy.
As she is drowning her, Piper calls out "Mum" and Laura stops, getting hit with the realization of what she is doing. Piper manages to get away.
Oliver walks out of the property and circle, and whatever is possessing him, leaves his body.
Laura drags out Cathy's remains and gets into the pool with her. She lets her wounded arm bleed out.
Piper manages to make it to the road where she is picked up by kind strangers.
She hears a plane and looks up, wondering if it is Andy who is going to heaven.
The police arrive at Laura's house and finds her next to Cathy's corpse just as a search party finds Oliver who now informs them that he is Connor Bird.
A sort of happy ending for all.
The end.
MY TAKE ON THE MOVIE
Bring Her Back is a terrific movie with raw emotions and sensitivity when it comes to dealing with subjects like disability and grief. It sends out a challenging perspective of how grief can change a person. On one side, Laura lives with the delusion that she can bring her deceased daughter back to life; on the other, we have Andy, who is plain traumatized by finding his dead father in the shower.
Then we have Piper, perhaps the only character who has a better way to handle her grief. She has made peace with the fact that her father is gone and keeps a memento of him. Once Andy is gone too, she looks up at the sky, as a way to respect his departure to heaven.
Bring Her Back is one movie you do not want to miss out on.
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