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Back yard brotherly pranks, comedic violence and schlock horror morphed into psychological terror when the Australian YouTubers and twins Danny and Michael Philippou unleashed their debut feature Talk To Me on the world two years ago.
The supernatural thriller, about a group of Adelaide teens who get in over their heads while playing a twisted party game, was the surprise hit of 2023: made on a shoestring budget of just US$4.5m, it grossed almost US$100m at the global box office. It became US indie film studio A24’s most successful horror film and scooped up a swathe of Australian and international awards, with the Hollywood Reporter praising the Philippous as a “welcome splash of new blood on the horror landscape”.
A sequel was inevitable, and sure enough, Talk To Me 2 – or Talk 2 Me – is currently under development. But first the brothers are following up their smash hit debut with Bring Her Back, opening in cinemas in Australia and the US this week.
Bring Her Back follows newly orphaned teen siblings Andy and Piper as they enter the foster home of former social worker Laura, played by the British actor Sally Hawkins. Things are weird from the get-go: Laura has a nervy, frayed energy, thinly papering over the grief of her own daughter’s death; and there is the unsettling presence and disturbing behaviour of her other foster child, the mute 10-year-old Oliver. Things rapidly go from bad to worst-possible, with the Philippous upping the ante to deliver something even more disturbing than their debut.
Watching Bring Her Back, you can sense that the Philippou brothers, once known for DIY bodily carnage, irresponsible stunts and the occasional intervention of law enforcement, have finally grown up.
Danny, the more exuberant and blonder of the brothers, clearly gets a kick out of the suggestion the pair have made a successful transition to “intelligent gore”. Their early days making viral homemade videos on their YouTube channel RackaRacka, he says, “was very specific content for a specific target audience … You outgrow that stuff. You’re recording it, and I’m like, I’m not really feeling it any more. This isn’t really who I am.”
He recalls reconnecting with Bill Hinzman, with whom he co-wrote Talk To Me and Bring Her Back, at a crucial moment when he felt he was outgrowing the online stunts. “We’d written a short film back in the day, and then we just started writing together. And it felt really good, because it felt like it was time. We were ready to make the jump into feature films. I think that it was definitely a maturity thing.”
Growing up in the working-class Adelaide suburb of Pooraka in South Australia, a career in film seemed like an impossible dream for both twins.
“We didn’t really know anyone that was in the film industry. We didn’t know Adelaide had a film industry,” Danny says. “So when we did find out there were actual film sets and film productions happening in Adelaide, we did anything just to be on them and be around them.”
“We began volunteering to be on film sets, because no one is ever going to turn away a free pair of hands,” Michael adds. “We put our hands up to do anything, and we worked with all different departments.”
Danny supported the two of them financially during this period by participating in paid clinical drug trials, earning $120 a day.
The turning point was Michael’s first paid gig, as a production runner on the Adelaide shoot for 2014’s The Babadook, now one of Australia’s most acclaimed horror films.
“Being around [actor] Essie Davis and [director] Jennifer Kent was the most amazing experience,” he says. “It was the first time I’d seen a director truly care about what she was making. And it was inspiring to watch.”
Although they have been based in Los Angeles since 2019 – the brothers recently bought a house together there (“We have separate floors … we do have our own lives,” Danny insists) – they shot Bring Her Back in South Australia, and remain committed to keeping a production studio in Adelaide.
“We’ve had so many opportunities,” says Danny. “We’ve been offered some really big overseas projects by big studio films, but it didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel comfortable. [In Adelaide], it feels right, it feels comfortable.”
A clash of filming schedules with Bring Her Back was initially blamed for the brothers’ sudden withdrawal last year from directing a Hollywood adaptation of the video game Street Fighter, but Danny now admits it was also one of those big opportunities that just didn’t feel right.
“We thought, ‘hell yeah, we’ll do that’. And you sign all these things, and then it’s like, wait, how the hell do we realistically do this properly, make sure it’s not just a cash grab and put our hearts into it? Which is what it deserves. It just wouldn’t have worked. So we had to separate from that.”
Returning to Talk To Me, the Philippous’ attempt at a prequel got off to a rocky start: they put preliminary footage online, in an effort to return to their YouTube roots, but it was pulled down almost as fast as the brothers were loading it; it was too graphic and they had their account temporarily blocked. There are some things you can show on the big screen that you can’t on the internet, they learned.
Talk 2 Me, the sequel, is currently in an embryonic state and something of a twin: there are two different versions of the same script, with two different sets of characters based in two different places. Decisions need to be made.
The brothers are now in post-production for a documentary on deathmatch wrestling – discussion of which prompts much adolescent enthusiasm and nostalgia in the twins, remembering times in their Pooraka back yard. “Imagine professional wrestling like WWE, but with real blood, real weapons. It’s extreme performance art,” Michael says.
“People die,” Danny interjects, with delight.
“It’s a very risky sub-genre of wrestling, very underground,” Michael continues. “It’s a world we’ve been fascinated with since we were kids. We used to do two things when we were little – make movies and do back yard wrestling – which quickly turned into deathmatch wrestling. We used to cut barbed wire off of construction sites and throw each other into it.”
“We’re going to try and finish it by the end of this year.”
And there is another horror film in the early stages of development.
“I don’t even know if we’re supposed to be saying this, but yeah, we’re developing another one … I always get into trouble for saying these sorts of things,” says Danny.
“We want to get back to comedy and action, but I’m still not done with the horror genre yet.”
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Bring Her Back is in cinemas from 29 May
