USA/Germany/France. 2023.
Crew
Director – Alberto Corredor, Screenplay – Bryce McGuire & Christina Pamies, Based on the Short Film Baghead (2017) Written by Lorcan Reilly, Producers – Alex Heineman & Andrew Rona, Photography – Cale Finot, Music – Suvi-Eeva Aikas, Visual Effects – CoSA VFX (Supervisor – Neil Craig), Mr. Wolf (Supervisor – Duy Nguyen) & Pharos – The Post Group (Supervisor – David Laubsch), Special Effects Supervisor – Uli Nefzer, Makeup Effects Design – Birger Laube, Production Design – Marc Bitz. Production Company – Picture Company/Studio Babelsberg/Studio Canalfilm GmbH/Canal/Cine+.
Cast
Freya Allen (Iris Lark), Jeremy Irvine (Neil), Ruby Barker (Katie), Peter Mullan (Owen Lark), Anne Müller (Baghead), Svenja Jung (Sarah), Ned Dennehy (Solicitor), Julika Jenkins (Regina), Saffron Burrows (Catherine)
Plot
Iris Lark is down on her luck, having no job and just having been evicted from her apartment. She then receives notification that her estranged father Owen has died and that she has inherited The Queen’s Head pub. She goes to check out the large old building and moves in there from lack of another place to stay. She is then interrupted by Neil who offers four thousand pounds if she will let him talk to what is in the basement. Iris knows nothing of this and goes down to the basement to discover a hole in the wall that contains a creature with its head covered by a bag. If one gives the creature the personal item of a departed one, it will lift the bag and manifest as the dead person come back to life. Neil wants to talk to his late wife and Iris is startled to watch as this happens. Afterwards she learns that one can only allow the departed to manifest for two minutes otherwise the Baghead starts to exert control. However, Neil’s return and increased usage of the Baghead allows it to start influencing Iris’s sense of reality.
Baghead was a feature-film debut for director Alberto Corredor. Corredor was born in Spain and then relocated to the UK. Corredor had previously made the basis of this as a short film Baghead (2017) and then received funding to expand it to feature length, including from high-profile US producer Roy Lee. Baghead should not be confused with the earlier Duplass Brothers Greta Gerwig-starring horror comedy Baghead (2008).
Baghead creates a fascinatingly original set up – a creature that can bring one’s dead to life but turns the use against them if it is allowed to stay for longer than two minutes. There are undeniable similarities to the recent Australian horror film Talk to Me (2022). And then there is the facility – which looks more like a lodge or college than a pub – where the owner is in a precarious pact where repeated use of the Baghead starts to affect their own reality.
There is something completely unearthly when the Baghead first appears from the hole in the wall – the build-up is sufficiently effective that you have no idea initially what to expect as the figure appears out of the wall, receives its orders from Freya Allen to sit down and then devours the wedding ring that Jeremy Irvine offers and lifts the bag to reveal the face of his wife (Svenja Jung).
Baghead has a highly original premise, an uncanny creepiness and a script that subsequently places twists on everything that happens. It also fails to work. The problem with the film is that it has an unsettlingly uncanny and creepy set-up but is lumbered with a director who mishandles everything. Either that or the various producing presences like Roy Lee has demanded that Corredor adhere far more to a formulaic Hollywood horror film, or perhaps that an ingénue director has gotten carried away after being granted his first big budget and kept piling on effects.
It begins with the pub that looks like no pub I have ever sat down at but more like the cavernous halls of a church or an old styled English university. And it seems that the only reason for this is to make the locale more like the setting for a horror film than any standard British pub. It may be a bar but we never see any patrons and little evidence of anywhere people would come and sit down to drink and socialise.
Even from the early scenes, a lot of what goes on is being pumped up with horror ‘effect’. The initial scene with the appearance of Baghead is blown up with ridiculous scenes of Jeremy Irvine’s wife appearing and turning into something hideous saying “I just want a kiss” and then forcing itself down on top of him vomiting insects from its mouth. While there are quite effective twists in the script and a grim ending, a lot of the horror effects subsequently deployed are just pop-up effects that destroy the potential.
Trailer here