Hidden in the Circle: Unveiling the Possession Ritual in Bring Her Back

Not easily decoded, Bring Her Back buries its meaning in myth and grief; Here we reveal the structure beneath the ritual.

After recently watching Bring Her Back, I was left with a sense of unease…Like an enigmatic residue that lingers after watching.

In Bring Her Back, grief becomes the ritual itself. The characters, each bleeding from the loss of their love ones, turn to a supernatural means in search for connection or control. What unfolds is a painful system. The film quietly constructs a neo-mythology: a modern form of witchcraft repackaged for the era of social media and digital mourning.

Visually, the film is saturated with gore. its mise-en-scène is relentless and visceral,. But beneath the gore and suspense lies a structure most viewers will miss: A coded sequence of possession and resurrection. By the time the final frame arrives, the audience is left with more questions than answers.

And yet, that’s precisely where this analysis begins. This is an invitation to truly enter the ritual and decode it, piece by piece.

My framework is to understand the occult architecture of the film and maybe, in the process, find meaning in its structure beneath the ritual.

Resurrection: The Logic of the Living Vessel

Now that we’ve entered the haunted territory of Bring Her Back, it becomes clear that the resurrection ritual is not only the film’s narrative engine, but a profound spiritual obsession.

At its core, the film is about what happens when those emotions are weaponized through ritual. The possibility of reversing death becomes the seductive danger that devours our psyche and hearts.

Lara, portrayed with haunting precision by Sally Hawkins, discovers a series of obscure videotapes, VHS relics that document what appears to be a successful resurrection ritual. And this is where here decent begins, the deeper she watches, the more fragmented and terrifying the footage becomes, and the more the film fractures its own reality.

From what the movie reveals, though always in fragments, we come to identify three essential components of the resurrection:

1. The Lost Soul : The spirit or residual consciousness of the deceased, still lingering in the death for many days after passing.
2. The Living Vessel :The person who must consume a piece of the corpse, forming a bridge between death and life.
3. The New Host : The body into which the resurrected soul is deposited.At first it seems almost too simple. The living vessel ingests flesh from the dead corspe, forming a metaphysical link. Then the ritual completes as that soul is passed into the chosen host. But of course, this isn’t science. It’s black magic and which craft never comes without consequence

The motif symbolism that binds these events together is the circle. It functions not just as a literal boundary, but as the symbolic containment of death. It’s both protection and prison. The living vessel must remain within this circle for the ritual to hold. To cross it is to break the link, to risk letting the soul collapse back into chaos, or worse: to regain control of oneself and reject the process entirely.

As Lara continues her experimentations, the ritual becomes increasingly unstable. We’re watching someone trying to follow a set of instructions using only degraded VHS tapes and guesswork. And in doing so, the film mirrors her confusion with our own.

By the end of the film, the ritual map remains incomplete and symbols remain ambiguous. And this is precisely where the film refuses to hold your hand, because maybe it doesn't want you to understand. Maybe it wants you to try to become part of the ritual and complete it yourself.

Forbidden Geometry : Myth, Witchcraft, and the Rituals Beneath the Flesh

There is nothing new about witchcraft in horror. Since the birth of cinema, the occult has whispered from the margins of the screen. Bring Her Back belongs to this lineage, but with a chilling twist: it doesn’t just borrow symbols. It rearranges them into a new system. One that feels unearthed rather than invented.

This part of the analysis is a descent: not just into the film’s logic, but into the mythologies it reconfigures. To understand the ritual, we must understand the symbols.

The Circle:

In occult tradition, particularly within Wicca and Neo-Paganism, the magic circle is a sacred space. It marks the boundary between the mundane world and the spiritual one. Inside the circle, time bends and energy can be invoked. It’s not just protection. It is power.

In Bring Her Back, the ritualistic circle is the film’s most visible symbol.it acts as a metaphysical firewall.

The film uses the circle both literally and psychologically. Once inside, Lara isn't just part of a ceremony, she’s inside a system that rewrites her boundaries. The circle contains her, but also transforms her.

The Crescent Moon:

The moon governs more than tides. In witchcraft, its phases dictate intention: creation, release, manifestation, death. The waning moon: the phase between full and new, is the phase of letting go, banishing and decay.

In the film, this is a recurring symbol marked under the living vessels eye. This is no accident. The waning moon becomes a visual omen.

Lara doesn’t simply perform a resurrection. She performs a letting go masquerading as a return. The paradox: She believes she’s bringing her loved one back, but in reality, she’s unleashing something evil.

Saturn Devouring His Son: The Fear of Legacy

Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son is one of the most disturbing paintings in Western art. It depicts the Roman god Saturn (Cronus in Greek mythology) in the act of consuming his child: a metaphor for paranoia, power and self-destruction.

This myth is echoed in Bring Her Back through the possession cycle. The living vessel consumes a part of the dead. Symbolically, this act mirrors Saturn’s hunger.

Lara is obsessed with resurrecting her loved one, so she begins to consume others emotionally, spiritually, and finally, physically. Her fear of loss becomes the act of destruction.

Everything means something in this film. The circle is a system. The moon is a timer. Saturn is a warning. And you, the viewer become passive participant.

blackangeltapes.net

What if I told you Bring Her Back doesn’t end with its final frame?

In a brilliant and haunting expansion of their cinematic world, directors Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou (best known for Talk to Me) have hidden some eastereggs that unveils their dark multiverse, not on screen, but with an Alternative Reality Game online (ARG). At first glance, it appears to be nothing more than a twisted online store: a website selling ritual props, haunted masks and forbidden videotapes. A gothic Etsy for the damned.

But once you begin to navigate the site, the horror deepens.
There, among the cursed products, is a videotape titled “The Resurrection of Atari.”

And as soon as you press play you’ll recognize it immediately. It’s the same footage at the beginning of Bring Her Back. That strange, VHS resurrection ritual that sets the entire film in motion. In other words: This tape is a Resurrection tutorial, hidden in plain sight. It gives structure to what the film only hints at.

A user named Pom Pom begins to comment below.

At first, she seems like a curious visitor, asking practical questions about how the ritual works. But as her comments continue, the tone shifts. And then, with grim inevitability, we realize the truth: Pom Pom is Laura. Her story, now reappearing in the margins of the web, trying to decode the same ritual we’ve been obsessing over. It’s not just an easter egg. It’s a revelation.

And through Pom Pom’s digital descent, the final structure of the ritual is revealed:

Resurrection of Atari - Rules for Resurrection of a Love One

1. The ritual must take place within 12 months of the soul’s passing.
   After that, the connection fades beyond reach.
2. Partial consumption of the corpse by the living vessel is required.
   The flesh binds the soul to the host.
3. The living vessel must starve for three days prior to the ritual.
   Hunger opens the spiritual gate.
4. After the three days, consumption must begin within 24 hours.
   Delay fractures the connection.
5. The longer the vessel starves, the hungrier the soul becomes.
   This increases risk of possession spiraling out of control.
6. If the vessel breaks the circle and crosses the boundary,
   the ritual fails. To restart:
   Repeat the rite under 10 waning recent movements anticlockwise