The Philippou Brothers are reinventing horror from outside the Hollywood system

As kids coming of age in South Australia, twins Michael and Danny Philippou ran wild. They were partly raised by their Greek Cypriot grandfather, who didn’t speak strong English and could be bamboozled into buying them age-restricted films that they probably shouldn’t have been watching.

• READ MORE: ‘Talk To Me’ review: give this hair-raising debut horror a hand

“He was my mum’s dad but moved in with my dad after they divorced,” explains Danny as the pair, now 32, chat to NME over Zoom. “He was someone who was really taking care of us and then he passed away when we were 13. Then it turned into Lord Of The Flies.”

“We grew up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide,” adds Michael, taking over the thread with the kind of fluidity that comes naturally between siblings. “There are a lot of government houses, so there were a lot of children around the same age as us, from all different ethnicities and backgrounds. We all just somehow flocked together and started making movies and stuff. Our poor grandfather: every day after school, 10 kids would rock up and just be destroying the house.”

He leaves a perfectly timed pause, an impish smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I feel bad. May he rest in peace.”

It’s the kind of warped humour that’s come to define the Philippou brothers, who started out as YouTube pranksters RackaRacka before blowing away all preconceptions with their debut feature film, 2022’s Talk To Me, an occult-themed horror smash that pulled in around $92m (£68m) against a budget of just $4.5m (£3m). Now they’ve returned with Bring Her Back, a much darker and bleaker film that stars Sally Hawkins as Laura, a bereaved mother who’s unwisely been entrusted to foster the partially-sighted Piper (Sora Wong in first screen role) and her wayward brother Andy (Billy Barratt).

Needless to say, they do not live out the rest of their days in Waltons-like harmony. The first clue that we’re in freaky territory is Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), the shaven-headed foster child Laura has already taken in. He’s a dead-ringer for Eleven in the first series of Stranger Things and has a nasty habit of leaving blood stains about the place. The film is beautifully crafted and almost perfectly paced. A slow burn before its breakneck final third act, it’s a beguiling mix of taut family drama, psychological thriller, occult horror and brutal, ultra-violence.

We’re a long way from Recreating CRAZY WWE Moments, the 2020 YouTube video in which the Philippous and their pals risked life and limb in the name of amassing almost 15million views. Yet the film – which, as with Talk To Me, Danny co-wrote with a press-shy scriptwriter known pseudonymously as Bill Hinzman – is quintessentially them.

Indeed, the movie was partly inspired by the grief they felt for a young family member and a young friend who died, respectively, during the writing and filming processes. One newspaper has suggested that with Bring Her Back, the lads “have finally grown up”. How do they feel about that – do they want to grow up?

The twins, who are uproariously energetic throughout our interview and still seem far more like YouTube pranksters than self-serious filmmakers, cackle at the suggestion. “Talk To Me was more popcorn horror,” says Michael, “and we wanted to commit to a different energy and challenge ourselves – because it goes against our instincts [which are] to be fast-paced. But growing up? I think not!”

As they operate outside of the Hollywood system, the duo’s filmmaking is shot through with anarchic punk energy. “I like the freedom that we’ve got and how we can express ourselves in a really raw and visceral way,” says Danny. He cites their homeland’s original ‘Ozploitation’ era, which lasted between the 1970s and 1990s, when directors created the grimly uncompromising low-budget likes of 1978’s The Scalp Merchant, as a key influence.

Their approach, he explains, “just feels grittier and the characters aren’t needing to be bubble-wrapped. We’re not going through the system where it’s like, ‘This has to satisfy every audience; everyone has to feel happy.’ We really wanna follow our own instincts and our own passion.”

The duo had been warned that they wouldn’t enjoy the same freedom again after the success of their first movie. But the doubters hadn’t counted on A24, the New York-based production company that’s scored big with risk-taking hits such as 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once and the low-budget queer coming-of-age drama Moonlight, which famously beat out La La Land for Best Picture at the 2017 Oscars.

Given its gruesome nature and the fact that it was made by two former YouTube goofballs, perhaps the most surprising thing about Bring Her Back is that it stars the smiley, lauded Brit actor Sally Hawkins. There are various scenes of Laura watching a flickery old VHS that depicts a grotesque occult ritual involving cannibalism and a corpse. One subplot explores Piper and Andy’s relationship with their recently deceased father, who abused the former and lavished love on the latter. It is, when all’s said and done, quite a different film to Paddington.

“We had a list of people and she was first on our list,” recalls Danny. “We didn’t think she’d say yes because she’s such a prestigious actor. We didn’t think our energies would match.”

The twins were pleasantly surprised. With no celebrity ego, have-a-go-Hawkins gamely played knock-a-door-run (the Philippous call it “ding-dong-dashing”; you might have another name for the enjoyably irritating game that involves ringing people’s doorbells and legging it) with the cast at midnight. Although the scene was cut from the movie, it proved they were on the same page.

“We’re obsessed with moviemaking and she is too,” says Danny, “so the idea of going down the rabbit hole with her on a character level was the most amazing thing ever.”

Hawkins’ presence in the movie is not the Philippous’ first dalliance with the mainstream, given that they were due to direct a Street Fighter adaptation before choosing Bring Her Back because they didn’t want to be held responsible for an existing franchise. Although they don’t rule out working within the Hollywood system, they are – as ever – concentrating on following their own muse. Danny is currently working on a sequel to Talk To Me (he’s written two versions but can’t decide between them) and another horror script that’s still in its embryonic stages.

The pair are also putting the finishing touches to a documentary about deathmatch wrestling, a violent form of wrestling that they engaged in during their Lord Of The Flies years in the ‘burbs. As well as exploring the subgenre, they’ll perform in the film, with Michael heading to Mexico in September to take part in a deathmatch. “[The doc] might be really hard for people to watch,” he chuckles.

This might not sound like the work of two brothers who’ve grown up, but it’s true that Bring Her Back represents a new, arguably more thoughtful chapter in their career. For all the film’s brutality, argues Michael, it’s built around a strong emotional core. “There’s Laura’s love for her daughter,” he says, “Andy’s lack of love from his father and the love from Andy’s father for Piper, and the friction that caused. Everything stems from love.”

‘Bring Her Back’ is in UK cinemas now

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