Film Review of the Week

Horror

Bring Her Back (18)

Review: Australian filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou prove their creepy directorial debut, Talk To Me, was no fluke with an assured walkabout in psychological horror tethered to a ferociously committed performance from Sally Hawkins as a foster mother who goes to extraordinary lengths to reclaim everything that has been cruelly taken from her. Punctuated by grainy VHS footage of a stomach-churning occult ritual, Bring Her Back steadily cranks up tension, building to a graphically violent and unremittingly bleak final act that confirms the filmmaker siblings are unafraid to sneer in the face of cosy conventions.

The benign domesticity of the film’s dramatic set-up makes the gore-slathered fury of an intentionally off-kilter second half even more shocking. Practical make-up effects and horribly realistic prosthetics wreak havoc on the nerves. There is no escape from the escalating madness. Close your eyes to momentarily blot out the image of human flesh being hungrily torn from the bone and Emma Bortignon’s immersive sound design will conjure nightmarish images in the mind instead. Danny Philippou’s script, co-written with Bill Hinzman, revisits the complexities of grief (a key theme of Talk To Me) and considers the corrosive power of shame through the eyes of a teenage protagonist, whose deep emotional scars from childhood make them easy prey for manipulation.

Seventeen-year-old Andy (Billy Barratt) and his visually impaired younger stepsister Piper (Sora Wong) discover their father (Stephen Phillips) dead in the shower. Since he is still a minor in the eyes of the law, Andy is at the mercy of social worker Wendy (Sally-Anne Upton) and she makes clear that his troubled past will be a red flag to most foster parents. Thankfully, single mother Laura (Sally Hawkins) agrees to take in both Andy and Piper until the traumatised boy comes of age and can apply for legal guardianship.

Laura’s late daughter Cathy (Mischa Heywood) was blind so the family home is already set up to cater to Piper’s needs. There is clear favouritism from the moment the orphaned children arrive and are introduced to another foster ward, Olly (Jonah Wren Phillips), who is selectively mute and largely stays in his room. Events inside Laura’s home gradually spiral out of control and Andy fears he is losing his mind when he is accused of actions that he can’t recall.

Bring Her Back is a compelling companion piece to Talk To Me, punctuated by wince-inducing scares that crescendo with an excruciating interlude involving a kitchen knife. Hawkins’ all-guns-blazing portrayal of corrupted maternal love dominates every frame and she spars convincingly with Barratt’s traumatised teenager. The Philippou brothers sustain a chokehold on our attention but almost squeeze too hard in the film’s closing minutes.

Adventure

The Legend Of Ochi (12A)

Review: Growing up in a cinematic age before digital wizardry seamlessly melded computer-generated characters and flesh-and-blood counterparts, my fondest memories were reserved for ingenious practical effects that magically brought fantastical creatures to life on the big screen. A stranded visitor with a glowing heart in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial; a flying white luck dragon in The Neverending Story; a menagerie of otherworldly denizens of David Bowie’s Labyrinth; the lovable Ewoks in a galaxy far, far away.

First-time writer-director Isaiah Saxon recaptures that crafty filmmaking spirit with state-of-the-art puppetry and handmade matte paintings in a charming fantasy adventure that follows a young girl on a quest to return a helpless creature to its family. The Ochi of the title are adorable forest-dwelling beasts that communicate using high-pitched chirrups and chirps. They are blamed for attacks on cattle and supposedly spirit away unfortunate villagers at night. The creature design suggests an inquisitive hybrid of Gizmo from Gremlins and Gelflings from The Dark Crystal and one adorable infant Ochi shepherds an emotionally repressed teenage heroine across the Rubicon to womanhood in a little over an hour and a half.

The Legend Of Ochi looks far more expensive than its impressively low $10 million budget and Saxon and his collaborators fill the screen with wonder. Some of the storytelling and characterisation are equally lean, but Saxon’s nostalgic influences are joyfully evident. The ending owes a huge debut to Steven Spielberg’s alien who successfully phoned home.

Maxim (Willem Dafoe) lives in a secluded village on the island of Carpathia with his painfully shy daughter, Yuri (Helena Zengel), who he largely ignores to concentrate on training boy soldiers to hunt down and kill the reclusive Ochi. Carpathians are raised to fear the Ochi – they took Maxim’s wife Dasha (Emily Watson) – and villagers comply with a strict curfew between 8pm and 6am.

While many sleep, Maxim’s makeshift militia hunts down monsters under a cloak of darkness. During a walk in the forest, Yuri discovers a baby Ochi caught in a trap and releases the injured animal. “I’m taking him home,” she defiantly informs adopted brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard) and Yuri treks into the wilderness to reunite her furry companion with its mother.

The Legend Of Ochi is a glorious throwback to family-friendly escapades from the 1970s and 1980s, when filmmakers couldn’t rely on a computer hard drive to realise their wild imaginations. Zengel is endearing from the first moment Yuri cowers on screen, gradually coming out of her shell as she learns to communicate with the Ochi and, literally, finds her voice. Dafoe and Watson offer strong support but Wolfhard’s protege is surplus to requirements beyond acting as catalyst to drive the plot forward.

Comedy

The Naked Gun (15)

Review: Some of the best gags in director Akiva Schaffer’s reboot of the rip-roaring comedy franchise are not in the film. These choice nuggets are covertly nestled in the end credits, rewarding eagle-eyed observation for those who stay in their seats when most of the audience are filing out of the cinema. Visual gags have always been a chief pleasure of the filthy-minded and gleefully dim-witted Naked Gun series and Schaffer and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand milk a steady flow of chuckles from Easter eggs (a stuffed animal as restaurant decor) and elaborate set pieces (infrared images mistakenly suggest a couple is engaged in enthusiastic and acrobatic coitus). A ridiculous running gag with takeaway coffee cups stays piping hot for 85 minutes.

Admittedly, the original 1988 version of The Naked Gun starring Leslie Nielsen shoehorned twice as many laughs into the same trim running time. However, the script here still hits several home runs with puns and malapropisms. A throwaway one-liner about university is deeply satisfying for its simplicity and the droll voiceover achieves the sublime when it compliments one character’s pert posterior as “a bottom that would make any toilet beg for the brown”.

OJ Simpson, who played Frank Drebin’s bumbling partner in earlier films, is a sitting duck for a jibe. Some chaotic clownery doesn’t land – a prolonged interlude soundtracked by Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now left me almost as cold as the snowman that threatens to come between lovebirds during a wintry getaway.

Police Squad detective Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr (Liam Neeson) is proud to follow in the footsteps of his father and protect the people of Los Angeles from the many rubbery faces of crime. Accompanied by partner Ed Hocken Jr (Paul Walter Hauser), Frank leaves chaos in his wake to the despair of long-suffering boss Chief Davis (CCH Pounder).

Bank thieves escape with the contents of a safety deposit box belonging to Simon Davenport, who is subsequently found dead behind the wheel of an electric car manufactured by charismatic magnate Richard Cane (Danny Huston). The deceased’s vampy sister, Beth (Pamela Anderson), implores Frank to unmask her brother’s killers and the smitten detective meets bullets with buffoonery to incur the wrath of Cane’s trusted lieutenant, Sig Gustafson (Kevin Durand).

The Naked Gun is a delightfully dippy comedy of deliberate errors that exceeds expectations but falls short of the delirious, gut-busting original. Neeson’s chip off the Drebin family block possesses the same delightful cluelessness as his old man with literal misunderstandings but lacks the effortlessness naivete of Nielsen’s lawman. Anderson embraces her slinky femme fatale with gusto and is unafraid to poke fun at herself. Punchlines that hit intended targets exceed the misses. Schaffer’s picture slips on the fluffy handcuffs and is arresting for the right reasons.