Off the back of production house A24’s whirlwind success horror flick Talk to Me, it has been reported that directors Danny and Michael Philippou are joining forces with the indie entertainment company again for a new original horror movie. The upcoming film is titled Bring Her Back, and will be the pair’s second collaboration with A24. According to Deadline, the film is expected to begin production this summer. Details of the film’s plot are currently being kept tightly under wraps.

Talk to Me released to US theatres on 28 July 2023, and caused an instant stir amongst horror communities. Set in Australia, Talk to Me follows a group of friends who learn how to conjure the spirits of the dead through an embalmed hand, accidentally unleashing powerful supernatural forces onto the world. The film currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 82%.

Danny and Michael Philippou are not the only recognisable names to be attached to Bring Her Back. Two-time Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins, known for Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Paul King’s Paddington franchise, is set to play the movie’s lead. Hawkins is not known as a horror actress, having forayed into the genre only in 2007’s The Killing Gene, directed by Tom Shankland. The film is being produced by Talk to Me alum Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings of Causeway Films. Ceyton and Jennings are known for director Jennifer Kent’s 2014 psychological horror The Babadook and her 2018 thriller The Nightingale.

Production for Bring Her Back comes swiftly after Talk to Me’s global success in 2023. Domestically, the film became A24’s highest-grossing horror film to date. At Utah’s Sundance Film Festival, the pair’s feature film debut was a smash hit. The pair, hailing from Adelaide, South Australia, got their start by launching their YouTube channel, RackaRacka, in 2013. They became famed on the platform for their live-action horror short films. Talk to Me earned $92 million at the global box office from its comparatively miniature $4.5 million budget. Bring Her Back is not the only project that the Philippou’s are attached to. A Talk to Me sequel, tentatively titled Talk to Me 2, and a semi-autobiographical documentary about underground deathmatch wrestling in the works.

It is an exciting time for horror fans, seeing newer faces make their names in the genre. For Danny and Michael Philippou, Talk to Me’s instant success put them on the map, and was a rare example of online celebrities successfully slotting into the guarded world of traditional media. There is currently no release date for Bring Her Back

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