In 2023, the Philippou twins, Danny and Michael, burst onto the global horror scene with their audacious, bone-rattling debut, “Talk to Me.” The film was a breakout for their star, Sophie Wilde, and the brothers from Adelaide, South Australia, who got their start on YouTube making videos under the handle RackaRacka, instantly became two of the most exciting new filmmakers in the densely populated genre space.

The premise of “Talk to Me” was simple and effective: a group of rebellious teens party hard with an amped-up Ouija board — a spooky plaster hand that possesses them with an afterlife spirit. The brothers showed off their flair for cinematic style and sound design, while the script, by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, worked in addiction metaphor and probed deeper themes about grief and loss.

Their second film, “Bring Her Back,” again written by Danny Philippou and Hinzman, is indeed a companion piece to the rowdy “Talk to Me,” exploring the same themes. But the twins haven’t lost any of their stylistic brio, upping the ante on gruesome imagery in this much bleaker film.

Once again, the protagonist is a troubled teenager who has recently lost a parent. Once again, there is gnarly body horror involving children. Once again, the film is about the anguish of losing a loved one and the the desire to connect with the dead one more time, the annihilating madness of grief driving a person to unspeakable ends. The story itself is fairly straightforward, it’s how the Philippous deliver it that makes it a compelling watch, crumbs of information delivered to make it more complicated and mysterious.

Ominous camcorder footage of a violent, cult-like ritual hovers throughout; one imagines unearthing these images from the forbidden corners of the dark web, a video that feels dangerous and infectious, like in “The Ring.” It’s a terrifying, abstruse warning of what’s lurking in “Bring Her Back.”

For Andy (Billy Barratt), the sudden death of his father is what kicks things into action: he and his stepsister, Piper (Sora Wong) suddenly find themselves in foster care, in the home of the ingratiating and definitely odd Laura (Sally Hawkins). Andy, three months shy of 18, hopes to apply for guardianship of Piper, who is blind, when the time comes. However, their new guardian is simultaneously hot and cold, has terrible boundaries, and as it turns out, has another child, the catatonic, strange Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips), isolated in the house. The red flags don’t get redder.

Laura is a role that allows Hawkins to weaponize her own appealing good nature. She played Paddington’s mother after all, and starred in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” in the titular role. The filmmakers take what we love about Hawkins — her wide smile and sunny disposition — and turn her into a terrifying foster monster. We expect her to nurture, and her Laura play-acts at it, cooing at Piper, talking endlessly of her late daughter Cathy (Mischa Heywood) who was also blind. She also hysterically controls the erratic Ollie’s whereabouts, and gaslights Andy.

Her ultimate plan doesn’t come as a great surprise or shocking reveal, the scheme slowly parceled out as Andy follows his intuition. The Philippous focus on the subjective experiences of their young protagonists, both narratively and aesthetically, and that approach to storytelling is where “Bring Her Back” shines.

The plot follows Andy’s discovery of Laura’s house of horrors, while the visual and sonic vocabulary align with Piper’s experience of the world, as she’s only able to see colors and shapes. A repeated motif sees characters, initially blurry, stepping into focus. Laura, familiar with blindness, uses sound in her manipulation: blasting music to cover up screaming, lying to Piper. The Philippous make the inherent vulnerability and required trust of a blind character integral not just to the plot but to their storytelling style as well.

“Bring Her Back” sees the Philippous advancing their grisly visuals while remixing the ideas in “Talk to Me,” where they were more deeply fleshed out. Some of the story details remain frustratingly out of reach — it’s not as drum-tight as its predecessor. But the execution and performances keep us hanging on, from the towering talent of Hawkins, to the harrowing display by young Phillips. Wong, in her first film, capably handles a range of material, but Barratt, an English actor, feels like the breakout star here, in the same way Wilde was in “Talk to Me.”

There are evocative, disturbing images and performances of bodily destruction that will no doubt haunt the audience, but without a few grounding, explicit details, “Bring Her Back” is a whole lot of shock value in service of familiar ideas that are at times at loose ends. It’s about grief. So what else is new?

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'BRING HER BACK'

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong disturbing bloody violent content, some grisly images, graphic nudity, underage drinking and language)

Running time: 1:39

How to watch: In theaters May 30

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