The following contains spoilers for Bring Her BackBring Her Back is a heartbreaking exploration of anguish that builds to a harrowing ritual surrounding grieving mother Laura and her foster children/ritualistic victims, Piper and Oliver. Bring Her Back focuses on Andy and Piper, a pair of teenagers who are taken in by a foster mother named Laura alongside their new “brother,” Oliver.
Despite her innocent exterior, Laura is actually far more dangerous than she appears — as she’s found a ritual that will sacrifice the children to bring her deceased daughter back to life. The critically acclaimed Bring Her Back is a powerful exploration of how far grief will push a person, building to a heartbreaking ending that underscores that theme.
How Piper Escapes From Laura In Bring Her Back’s Ending
The bleak ending of Bring Her Back concludes with Piper escaping Laura’s grasp thanks to Laura’s innate maternal instinct, a sign that her inhuman acts haven’t destroyed her humanity completely. After realizing that Laura has been manipulating her against her brother Andy (and discovering his corpse in the house), Piper only escapes Laura when she calls her “Mom.”
Laura’s motivation in Bring Her Back is to resurrect her daughter, even at the cost of multiple innocent lives. This raw grief is what drives Laura to such grisly extremes, making her pitiable in a way few horror movie villains are. That same emotional side is what shakes Laura enough that Piper is able to escape with her life.
Laura has positioned herself as a new maternal figure for Piper. She’s been shown to have a genuinely caring side, even if it’s been overcome by a ruthlessness and willingness to do anything to have her daughter back. It’s telling then that, by calling upon that kind of relationship, Piper can give Laura pause at a crucial junction.
Piper alerts the authorities and brings Laura’s image as an innocent mother crashing down. She doesn’t seem to mind, either, with the final shot being one of Laura cradling her daughter’s corpse instead of fleeing. It’s indicative of how overwhelming grief can be, and how even a spark of love can upend the pain, even just for a moment.
How Oliver Breaks Free Of The Possession (And His Role In The Resurrection Ritual)
Laura’s other victim is Oliver, a boy kidnapped under the guise of an “adoption.” Oliver is an important part of the resurrection ritual. To restore someone to life requires two victims. The first person serves as a living vessel for the soul of the deceased. This is Oliver, left in a trance-like state after being infused with Cathy’s soul.
If Laura can kill Piper in the same way Cathy died (i.e. drowning), Oliver can then eat chunks of Cathy’s body and spit it into Piper, thus completing the soul transfer. Doing so would effectively kill Piper and Oliver. It’s a gruesome beat that is only prevented by Piper escaping. This doesn’t kill Oliver and instead restores him.
Oliver is one of Bring Her Back‘s most tragic characters, a victim meant to be sacrificed to restore Laura’s family. Notably, his family is still looking for him as well, with missing posters for him cluing Alex in to the true danger posed by Laura. In essence, Laura has been inflicting the same grief she’s dealing with on another family.
Oliver’s true identity shows that the movie may understand Laura, but it decidedly doesn’t side with her. She may be in grief, but her capture and transformation of Oliver highlights how Laura’s grief has diminished (if not fully extinguished) her capacity for empathy. She may be understandable, but she has allowed the grief to turn her into a monster.
The ending of Bring Her Back leaves the eventual fallout of Laura’s actions to the imagination. However, Oliver’s final lines in the film are spoken through his actual voice and reveal his real name as Connor, suggesting that he will be able to be reunited with his family and hopefully overcome the trauma of his experience.
What Happens To Laura After The Failed Ritual
Laura is portrayed as a genuinely tragic character in Bring Her Back, whose willingness to commit truly heinous acts against innocent people becomes more understandable (but no less horrifying) once her motivations are exposed. A parent is willing to do anything for their child, and Laura takes that to a frightening extreme.
This is what makes Laura such an unsettling character. Instead of just being evil and enjoying her murderous actions, Laura seems to know how wrong her actions are. Yet, she continues on. Grief has driven her to do the unthinkable, both to restore her loved one and to lift the grim emotion that controls her life and motivates her actions.
Laura’s humanity is most on display when she is genuinely upset over killing Andy and Wendy. She may have antagonized Andy repeatedly and tried to isolate him from Piper, but Laura’s tender moments suggest she did have a level of care for him. This is why she kisses his body, a motherly goodbye to the young man she just killed.
This plays into the final moment of the film, which sees Laura surrounded by the police. Given that she’s murdered two people and kidnapped a child, it’s likely that Laura is facing a lifetime in prison. She doesn’t seem to care or even notice as the police approach, however. Instead, she just clutches her daughter’s body.
Laura is a mother at her core. Having that connection taken away broke her. It transformed someone Wendy admired and Piper bonded with into a killer. Her blank stare while being arrested suggests she sees no point in fighting. Without her daughter in her life, Laura seems to have nothing, even when she could have found joy again.
This is the central tragedy of Bring Her Back. If Laura had accepted her grief, she could have become a good guardian to Andy and Piper. There’s empathy and understanding and genuine love at times — but none of it can overcome her pain, propelling her to become a monster in pursuit of bringing her daughter back.
What Is Andy’s Secret In Bring Her Back?
Andy spends much of Bring Her Back doing everything he can to support Piper, often frustrating his sister. Her severe near-sightedness doesn’t leave her blind, but it does impede some of her agency. In a parallel to Laura’s emotional state over her tactics and murderous actions, Andy’s commitment to Piper is also revealed to be rooted in guilt.
Late in Bring Her Back, Andy tries to reach out to Piper as she’s being steadily turned against him by Laura’s machinations. This is when he reveals that one of the reasons he’s so committed to helping her is because, when she was very young and adored by their father, a jealous Andy struck his baby sister.
It goes a long way towards explaining why Andy is so committed to watching over Piper, as he feels guilty (whether rightfully or not) for her physical condition. Andy’s tearful confession late in the film completely redefines the character, making him a fascinating contrast to Laura. Both characters care for Piper, committed a terrible act, and are wracked with guilt.
Andy spent his life trying to make up for that mistake. Laura also develops emotions for Piper, and that love is the thing that saves Piper when she calls Laura “Mom.” The difference is that Andy committed himself to Piper’s well-being, but couldn’t cross the lines that Piper does to restore her daughter.
The Real Meaning Of Bring Her Back
Much like their previous film Talk to Me, the Philippou’s Bring Her Back is rooted in an exploration of grief. While that film was focused on the experience of being young and confronted with the lingering pain that remains after a loss, Bring Her Back splits focus between teenagers adapting to grief alongside an adult who can’t escape her own.
Grief can unite people, as seen in an evening of reverie after Andy and Piper bury their father. Laura is at her most charming in this sequence, a potential new bedrock in their lives. This is when Laura is most sympathetic and likable, indicating how happiness and love could have grown out of their shared grief.
As reported by Screen Rant, Danny and Michael Philippou have suggested that Talk to Me and Bring Her Back are set in the same universe.
However, Laura can never escape the grief of her daughter. Laura’s willing to do anything to bring her back, even at the cost of sacrificing multiple other children like Oliver and Piper for her mission. It’s a haunting discovery, proof that grief has to be overcome not just for her mental health but the safety of others.
The lengths one will go to be reunited with their loved ones can turn good people into monsters, playing into the themes of both Talk To Me and Bring Her Back. It gives both films a consistent theme, even while allowing Bring Her Back to lean harder into the exploration of the impact and influence grief can have.
