‘Bring Her Back’ Directors Recieve Psychic Reading from a Real-Life Exorcist [Exclusive]
To celebrate the release of A24’s truly terrifying new film Bring Her Back, we invited real-life exorcist and author Rachel Stavis to sit down with the film’s writer-directors, Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me). What unfolds is part interview, part psychic reading, and a fascinating unveiling of the supernatural connections between Bring Her Back and allegedly very real demonic entities. As Stavis dives into the brothers’ paranormal pasts and energy fields, the trio unpacks the film’s core themes of grief, possession, and demonic spiritual attachment.
Bring Her Back stars Sally Hawkins as a mother shattered by loss who will stop at nothing, including grotesque supernatural means, to bring her child back from the dead. Together, this conversation blurs the line between fiction and something far stranger.
Read it for yourself below or check out the video here:
Danny Philippou: (Hushed but silly) I’m scared as well.
Rachel Stavis: (Logs on) Hi, how are you?
Michael Philippou: (Professional) We’re good. How are you?
RS: I’m good, thank you. So, I guess you know that I’m an exorcist. That’s what I do. I remove entities from people places and things. Now possession and attachment is really based in trauma. It really is about that energy, and it’s a double-edged sword, you know, when you experience trauma and grief, and then something else takes hold. And that’s what’s so great about Bring Her Back, because it’s exactly how it works. So you really tapped in there.
DP: Awesome, thank you! We had, um, a shaman that was helping bless the set and cleanse it of negative energies and all that. So that was a process that happened before we started shooting, and as we were shooting, as well.
RS: That’s so smart that you do that… I don’t wanna get too personal because we know this is going out to the wild world without getting into too much of your past background. And obviously, we don’t know each other. You are high empaths. This basically means that you are very sensitive to energy and I am going out on the limb here to say to you that, because I don’t know if you wanna admit it or not.
DP: I had some interesting, like, paranormal, kind of, weird things that have happened in the past. One situation I never could explain… Our grandfather used to live with us and would babysit us. When we were 13, he passed away in our house. There was always a really comforting sound of him coming home at night, you know, when we were the most terrified. I was always so terrified of nighttime, and he would come home at night and, I could hear him doing the dishes, and then he would make us food.
I’d come out and sit with him and I’d eat. I remember a couple of days after he passed away, it was 1 o’clock in the morning, all the lights off in the house, everybody was asleep and then I could hear the dishes being done. It was that comforting sound that I always would rely on and love hearing from my grandfather. So I remember that it was comforting, but also a little bit terrifying. I spoke to my sister about it the next day and she’s like, “Oh my god, did you hear that as well?” And we had all heard the dishes being done at midnight with all the lights off of everyone asleep.
MP: (Cheekily) It was me.
DP: It wasn’t Michael!
MP: Our poor grandfather’s stuck in the afterlife doing dishes…
DP: And Michael hasn’t washed the dishes in his life.
MP: Actually I do. Danny doesn’t wash the dishes
RS: Your grandfather is with you all the time, you know that, right?
DP: That’s a comforting thing to hear.
RS: It’s true. He was a really good man, let’s also put that out there. A really nice, good man that really was there for you. And you had a lot of fear at night because you had a lot of night terrors. It’s the sensitivity to energy and being a high empath like you. And kids are in particular so empathic because we come in so open and the world kind of takes it away as we get older. There’s a familiar smell that you have of him, that he does send around sometimes, which you might have noticed and been like, “Oh, weird that smells like that.”
DP: Yeah, it’s that candle! It smells like there is … like a certain aroma.
MP: I always, uh, worry about if we’ve attracted negative energies. Not because of the films that we made, but we also always seek out the most haunted places in the world and wanna stay at them. Like, I love camping out at a haunted environment. I don’t necessarily have a strong belief in it, but I’m always fascinated by it.
I always love hearing stories and, and, uh, people talking about experiences. That’s always fascinating to me. So I love doing it in different countries. I love diving into the occult world and interviewing people, and, and, like, hearing about different rituals.
RS: Well, if it was anything real bad, believe that I would be like, “We’re gonna talk separate.” That’s not gonna happen.
MP: That’s good. That’s comforting to hear, at least.
RS: No, you’re fine. When we are people who are attracted to the occult or people who love horror, it’s because we too are trying to deal with our own [pasts]. It’s a way to provide comfort. I can see [spirits]. I can see them on actors when they’re in movies, I can see them in pictures, I can see them walking around, and I did not know what that was. You know, that was really scary as a kid because, you know, when you’re a kid, you talk about everything and then some adult is like, “Don’t you dare talk about that?!” And you’re like, “Oh, sorry.”
MP: When you see entities, what does that look like physically? Does it look like a full person or what is it?
RS: They don’t look like people at all. Deceased people and entities totally different. Dead entities are what people consider demons and have never been people. I have seen a certain type of species of entities more often than others. I had a memoir come out and that goes through what the different entities are.
MP: I’m fascinated by this. Do these things acknowledge you? So when someone walks in with this, are they attached to this person? Are they completely attached to that person or are they aware of your presence?
RS: The answer is yes, but in weird ways. So when I go into public spaces, I try to block it out as much as possible. Because you have an entity and nobody wants to hear that can’t just go up to people and be like, this horrible thing that happened to you. Let’s discuss it, because there’s a worst thing attached to you that I’d love to take out for you.
DP: That’d be a hard conversation to have.
RS: It’s not as pleasant as, like, hearing from your grandfather. The weirdest part is when you’re watching a movie and you know, clearly, the actor has an attachment.
MP: Wait, did you see attachments in Bring Her Back?
RS: I did see one…
BOTH: Oh, really attached to which character??
RS: I can’t say that. That’s gonna out somebody.
BOTH: Oh, we can just beep it!
RS: I’ll tell you later. I’ll tell you privately, I don’t wanna put that out there.
MP: I was gonna say if you watch a film, and you see an actor, and they’re on screen, and there’s a and you see there’s an MC attached, and it distracts you because it was captured in a moment of time. If that MC was removed later down the line, do you still see it in the film?
RS: It’s not there anymore, same with photographs actually. So I can see entities in pictures, and you wouldn’t believe how many people are like, “Here are five pictures, can you tell me what’s going on?” It’s weird, but, it’s like it was never there.
DP: That’s insane. So, it is true when they say that photos capture the soul! I mean, film would be the same thing?
MP: The film is pictures, Danny!
DP: That’s what I’m saying!
Dread Central’s Mary Beth McAndrews recently awarded the film four stars in her review, writing, “Bring Her Back is a calculated risk to prove the filmmaking duo isn’t afraid to go weirder and freakier while shattering a few more taboos along the way. It’s that kind of risk-taking and original storytelling that keeps the genre feeling fresh and consistently relevant in popular culture.”
Bring Her Back is now playing in theatres everywhere. With a powerhouse performance from Sally Hawkins and the Philippou brothers’ signature mix of emotional horror and raw intensity, it’s a chilling descent into the spiritual fallout of grief. If this interview taught me anything, it’s that some stories … and some entities … don’t stay buried for long.
To learn more about real-life exorcist Rachel Stavis, you can visit her website here. She’s a world-renowned, non-denominational exorcist on a mission to create global change by eradicating darkness from one person or place at a time. In other words, we’re fans.
Categorized:Editorials Interviews News
