Sean Parker
Toward the end of 2023, I started hearing the name Baghead a lot. The film played a few fests and had a theatrical run overseas before finding its home at Shudder. The trailer had dropped at the start of December, and I have to admit, I was hyped. It boasted an interesting bit of originality as a haunted house exploitation film and a color palette found in the dread of isolative grief. Cold tones and a supernatural as f*ck storyline, what else could a horror fan want?
Baghead tells the story of a down-on-her-luck Gen Z-er, Iris (Freya Allen), whose opportunities and living spaces are drying up. When her estranged father (Peter Mullan) passes, the pub he leaves her in Germany seems almost heaven-sent. Iris travels to Berlin to meet with a solicitor (Ned Dennehy) and identify the body, not knowing that signing the deed comes with the caveat of an unevictable tenant.
One night, Iris’ new home is invaded by Neil (Jeremy Irvine), who is desperate to talk to his wife again, swearing to Iris there’s a woman in the basement who can make that happen. Iris discovers the Baghead lady (Anne Müller), a witch wearing a burlap sack over her face who has the ability to shape-shift into the dead for two minutes. Tempted to capitalize on the discovery, Iris quickly learns that breaking the two-minute threshold has intense ramifications. Following in her father’s footsteps, Iris and her best friend Katie (Ruby Barker) decide to try to stop Baghead for good.
The first thing I noticed when Baghead began spinning its supernatural yarn was that many people would consider director Alberto Corredor and writer Lorcan Reilly’s debut feature to be a Talk to Me rip-off. While the timeline may see Baghead as a 2023 horror film and Talk to Me as a 2022 release, Baghead is based on Corredor and Reilly’s short film of the same name, which debuted in 2017. Reilly pens the full-length movie screenplay as a part of a team with Christina Pamies and Night Swim writer Bryce McGuire. While much of the thematic material is similar to Talk to Me, the ghostly possession element is contained only to the witch, and the spirit is typically known to someone else in the room. In that, Baghead is far more pointed than Talk to Me yet covers much of the same ground. Still, I would say that audiences of the latter may find fun in the former.
Initial aesthetics are quite entrancing. A fiery cold open, droll colors radiating with dread-inducing undertones, and a very healthy pace keep the exposition quick and lively. There are even some fantastic cinematic shots. The lore surrounding Baghead is indiscernibly rich as well. However, the film finds difficulty keeping things up somewhere in the middle. The second half of the film feels a bit more templated, and a portion of it becomes somewhat repetitive as Iris and Neil bring their various demons out to play through Baghead. Reilly and Corredor course correct with an ultimately satisfying finale. It just feels as though the connecting dots were challenging to bring together.
The conjured ghosts of Neil and Iris’ past aren’t surprising, but they set up the harrowing aspects of grief and the spiral of recovery. What would you say if you had two more minutes to spend with a deceased loved one? How would you react if they didn’t accept or appreciate your words? The sentiment is there, but the connective tissue between the characters and the content struggles to reach the heartstrings or knot the stomachs of the viewer as intended. Though the actors are doing their best, there’s just no real depth to any characters in the story.
For me, there were also little annoyances early on. Like Iris beating the dust out of a curtain in the pub, though her father had just died, I guess it’s meant to be drab, but at this moment, I think it goes a little too far. Was the bar never open? That would have made Iris’ dad exceptionally terrible at running the place as a money laundry. Then again, I’m not all that up on German tax law. It may seem like a nitpick, but the irksome moments begin to pile up. It breaks the fantasy. An unfocused detail casting doubt on the world and leads to the next one in the basement. The undeniably cool look of Baghead emerging from a hole in the wall, built to be her tomb, is then met with the wonder of why no one ever attempted to reseal it.
Even with that said, my overall reaction to Baghead was genuinely positive. It’s a bit of a toss-up, and I could see viewers remaining mixed as well. Still, it’s mostly enjoyable and seems inspired by many recurring Halloween classics. Baghead has Evil Dead and Exorcist traits and intimates a campy Hammer Horror vibe. As a serious, dead-to-rights horror picture, Baghead isn’t likely to do the trick. But as spirited entertainment, it’s a bit better than the norm, boasting good performances and some hefty jump scares and fanfare. The film succeeds by being a haunted house roller-coaster but fails by not being dark enough to induce nightmares.
Baghead is now streaming on Shudder.
