Here Before: Andrea Riseborough Leads a Haunting Psychological Thriller About Grief and Reincarnation

A grieving mother begins to suspect that her dead daughter has returned in the form of a child living next door in Here Before, an unsettling psychological thriller that blurs the boundaries between supernatural possibility and the devastating effects of loss.

Premiering in competition at SXSW in 2021, the film marks the feature directorial debut of Stacey Gregg, an Australian-born filmmaker whose work has largely focused on British and Irish theatre and television. Set in a quiet suburb on the edge of the countryside in Northern Ireland, where Gregg grew up, the drama builds an eerie atmosphere around a deeply layered performance from Andrea Riseborough.

A Family Still Living With Loss

Riseborough plays Laura, a homemaker who appears to have settled into a familiar routine with her husband, Brendan, portrayed by Jonjo O’Neill, and their young son, Tadgh, played by Lewis McAskie.

She spends her days managing the household, taking Tadgh to and from school and maintaining friendly relationships with the people around her. Yet beneath this outwardly ordinary life lies an absence that quietly shapes everything she does. Small details — a discarded plastic pinwheel in a flowerbed or a freshly repainted spare room — hint at a family still struggling with an unbearable loss.

Laura and Brendan’s daughter, Josie, played briefly by Grace O’Dwyer, died in a car accident several years earlier while Brendan was driving. The tragedy has left emotional wounds that have not fully healed, even as the couple try to give Tadgh a stable home and prevent their grief from consuming family life.

Gregg reveals this history gradually, allowing the audience to recognise Laura’s pain through her expressions and behaviour rather than relying on lengthy explanations.

The New Neighbours Who Change Everything

Laura’s carefully maintained routine begins to shift when a family moves into the other half of the semi-detached house next door.

The newcomers are Marie, played by Eileen O’Higgins; her husband, Chris, portrayed by Martin McCann; and their 10-year-old daughter, Megan, played by Niamh Dornan. Megan’s unusual interests, including hang-gliding, make her stand out, but it is her resemblance to Josie that gradually draws Laura towards her.

At first, the two households observe the familiar rules of suburban neighbourliness. The adults exchange greetings, Laura and Megan occasionally chat in the garden, and everyone remains mindful of the boundaries between their separate lives.

Beneath the politeness, however, differences in background and social class create a subtle distance. Even a seemingly casual remark from Brendan about tattoos, made in front of Chris, who has heavily tattooed arms, exposes the unspoken judgements that can complicate relationships between neighbours.

The film’s setting adds another layer to this tension. In Northern Ireland, the memory of the Troubles and sectarian conflict continues to influence the collective psyche, lending an underlying wariness to these seemingly ordinary interactions.

Could Megan Be Laura’s Daughter Reborn?

The connection between Laura and Megan deepens after Laura finds the girl alone at the school gates one afternoon. Sensing that Megan is distressed by her mother’s absence, Laura agrees to drive her home.

During the journey, Megan makes an unsettling comment: she remembers the cemetery where Josie is buried, despite apparently having no previous connection to the town.

The remark initially seems easy to dismiss. But as the weeks pass, Megan’s words and behaviour begin to convince Laura that the girl may somehow be connected to her dead daughter.

Laura increasingly seeks opportunities to spend time with Megan, telling herself that she is doing so for Tadgh’s benefit, even though her son has little interest in spending time with a younger child. Beneath that explanation, however, lies a more personal and increasingly consuming need to reconnect with Josie.

The film gradually raises an unsettling question: has Josie’s soul somehow returned through Megan, or is Laura’s grief preventing her from seeing a more ordinary explanation?

Although the story begins to offer clues before its midpoint and provides a more conspicuous hint later on, Gregg continues to play with the conventions of psychological horror, allowing uncertainty to linger over what is real and what may be the product of Laura’s distressed mind.

An Unsettling Visual Style

Much of Here Before’s atmosphere comes from its carefully constructed images. Faces appear fleetingly behind windows, while an uncanny dream sequence features a child whose face becomes a blur of rapid movement before appearing in bed with Laura and Brendan.

The effect recalls the disturbing visual techniques of Adrian Lyne’s 1990 psychological horror-thriller Jacob’s Ladder, reinforcing the film’s sense of domestic life being invaded by something inexplicable.

Cinematographer Chloë Thomson also uses unusual drone angles and compositions framed through doorways to make familiar spaces feel strange and disorienting. Some shots seem to suggest the perspective of an unseen observer, as though the story is being watched by a presence capable of moving through the family home unnoticed.

The film largely follows Laura’s experience, with her movements and reactions guiding the audience through the mystery. At times, however, the perspective shifts unexpectedly towards Brendan, disrupting the usual approach of supernatural thrillers that keep viewers closely tied to a single troubled character.

That choice may divide audiences, but it contributes to the film’s uneasy atmosphere and its shifting sense of who — or what — is observing events.

Stacey Gregg’s Distinctive Feature Debut

Gregg demonstrates a strong eye for detail, creating a convincing sense of place without relying on familiar clichés about Northern Ireland. Her script and the performances, which retain a degree of natural spontaneity, capture the delicate balance of friendliness, social expectations and unspoken boundaries that shape suburban life.

Riseborough is particularly effective at conveying Laura’s confusion, grief and growing obsession without turning the character into a simple horror-film stereotype. Dornan also gives the story an unsettling centre as Megan, whose apparent familiarity with places and memories she should not know becomes increasingly difficult for Laura to ignore.

The film inevitably invites comparisons with Rose Glass’s Saint Maud, another British psychological horror story about a traumatised woman whose experiences lead her towards the supernatural. Yet Here Before takes a quieter, colder approach, avoiding much of the intense eroticism and heightened imagery associated with Glass’s film.

Instead, it builds its own distinctive spell through restrained performances, carefully observed domestic tension and the possibility that grief can profoundly alter a person’s understanding of reality.

For viewers drawn to psychological thrillers that explore the darker corners of mourning and motherhood, Here Before offers an eerie, thoughtful examination of what happens when the longing to bring back someone who has died begins to overwhelm everything else.