"Substitution: Bring Her Back": Danny and Michael Philippou's family of pitfalls

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In a second feature film, where they continue to cast ridiculous and annoying characters, the Philippou brothers follow two orphaned teenagers placed in a home riddled with madness.

Andy is placed with a psychotherapist alongside another orphan, the mute Olivier. (Ingvar Kenne/Sony Pictures)

Less than a year after the dreadful, but very profitable, The Hand ($92 million in revenue for a budget of barely $5 million), Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, jacks-of-all-trades who have undoubtedly become the new hopes of horror cinema, are back with a second feature film with necessarily high expectations – and a rather promising start. For about ten minutes, we even have the impression of watching the exact opposite of The Hand : a film with skillfully drawn characters, in whom we are immediately interested. Andy, a tormented teenager, and his visually impaired half-sister Piper. Who, after the sudden death of their father, find themselves placed with a psychotherapist alongside another orphan, the mute Oliver.

Vulnerable children placed with a caring benefactress: we know the drill. Everything will be played out on gray areas and pretenses until the atrocious truth comes out. Not in Substitution . Here, zero mystery, we immediately announce the color: the shrink is crazy, crazy, completely crazy, haunted by day by the memory of her drowned daughter, and riveted by night in front of videos of