‘Baghead’ Movie Review: ‘Talk To Me,’ This Is Not
Photo from AMC
From Jeremy Kibler
If given the chance to say goodbye to a loved one who is no longer with us, it wouldn’t just be a horror movie character’s bad decision but a very human decision. Unfortunately, director Alberto Corredor’s Baghead (which, technically, should be titled “Sackhead”) is more interested in cranking up those musical stingers and having its titular monster skitter about rather than closely following a character’s journey. Overshadowed by the most recent Talk to Me, this conceptually creepy but distinctly inferior variation on playing with the dead just doesn’t cut it.
The film follows Iris (Freya Allan), a young woman who ends up inheriting a London pub, Queen’s Head, from her estranged father (Peter Mullan). The building has a “special tenant,” along with “ancient traditions,” and once Iris signs the deed, it’s all hers. That’s her first mistake. Her next mistake is going down to the basement. Down there, there’s a hole in the brick wall where a finger-twitching witch with a burlap sack over her head resides (because all pub basements need one). Once the old crone (mostly played by Anne Müller when not morphing into someone else) sits in a chair, you have two minutes to connect with a lost loved one, who will return once you remove the witch’s bag. Go over those two minutes and you’re done for. Iris, later joined by her protective best friend Katie (Ruby Barker), experiences the power of Baghead firsthand when a widower, Neil (Jeremy Irvine), drops by, desiring to speak to his wife with some unfinished business. By being the new pub owner, Iris is now the master to whom the witchy thing must obey.
Though not without exceptions, most of this feels so pedestrian and timed to make one jump at every opportunity (no matter what volume setting you have on your TV). Since this is a horror movie and horrific things must happen, nobody adheres to the two-minute rule very well in spite of a VHS tape labeled “Instructions.” Emotions just have to take over for common sense. The script (based on Lorcan Reilly’s short film) by writers Christina Pamies and Bryce McGuire also recycles the same exposition over and over, stopping the film dead in its tracks.
Freya Allan makes for a plucky-enough heroine, but everyone else makes for a plot device. Katie’s entire raison d'être is to make sure Iris is taken care of, mostly being reduced to a horror-movie pawn.
To give credit where credit is due, Baghead does boast a decent mood, and it is surprisingly unforgiving toward certain characters that one would assume are off the table. Otherwise, it pretty much plays out exactly as you think it will, with a few bleak turns coming in a case of “too little, too late.” It’s just a bit too derivative to carve out its own identity, but it feels more like a frustrating missed opportunity than a dog’s breakfast. Still, give us the Duplass Brothers’ unusual indie Baghead any day of the week.
Rating: 2/5
Baghead is streaming on Shudder.
