One of the most profitable film companies is Blumhouse Productions. They’re very focused on their output, with the majority of their features being horror films.

Not only that, the budgets they use are ridiculously small, which is how they do so well with profit. For example, one of their first films was Paranormal Activity that had an incredible budget of only $15,000. It did get a bump when it came to post-production, which added a further $200,000, and that’s it. It seemed to be money well spent, as its box office resulted in...$194 million. Ker-ching indeed.

It feels that Australian directing brothers Danny and Michael Philippou may well be following their business ethos; their horror debut 2022’s Talk to Me had a budget of $4.5 million, and made an impressive $92 million in return.

And they attempted the same thing with this dark and disturbing follow-up.

Tragedy hits 17-year-old Andy (Billy Barratt) and his sight-impaired stepsister Piper (Sora Wong), that finds them being fostered by Laura (Sally Hawkins). She had a daughter, but she died, and her son Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) became mute from his grief for his sister.

Still, she seems to cope well, having a career as a counsellor, and seems well placed to look after the pair.

But the longer they stay there, it becomes more evident that Laura’s ability to cope with her grief is a real struggle, and all those around her will feel the evidence with disturbing consequences.

After a fairly familiar plot of their debut, which was well spun with their creativity, the Philippou brothers’ follow up is a much darker film. It loses itself with occasional shots of horrific scenes shot on videotape, that aren’t fully explained, but certainly hint at a troubled background.

But despite this thick veil of gloom, the film is about grief and loss on a number of levels, with the main one being that of Laura and her fragile state of mind that she submerges, hiding it out of sight, so no one gets an indication of the pain she’s in. Hawkins’s is perfect in the role, who also has no problem with the Australian accent, as she slowly reveals – or her hand is forced to do so – what her pain is making her do.

The two other cast members are also superb, especially Wong, in not only what is her debut performance, but whom also suffers from being sight-impaired as her character is.

And it’s their performances that wring the horror out of the story, in what is an undercurrent of the darkly disconcerting theme throughout.

It certainly follows the formula of their first film, with a budget of $14 million, but although its box office wasn’t amazing, with a return of just shy of $40 million, the brothers continue to display their considerable talents for horror, at the cost, perhaps, of not being widely palatable.

A truly emotional step forward from their first film, that allows horror to fully resonate in the emotional responses to death.