Review: Baghead (2024)

Everything has a price.

Baghead is a poor name for this horror film, which has a lot of potential in its lore that is mostly wasted here. Unlike a lot of other films, they do spend time giving an interesting backstory to the monster. A linage of death in keeping her horrors away from an unsuspecting world. Yet, as I said, they wrap that lore in a generic horror film. One, like so many others, that if the people involved were idiots, it would be a very, very short film. The film’s length is only due to one mistake after another that any rational person wouldn’t make.

Young Iris Lark (played by Europa Park from The Witcher) is summoned to her father’s (played by Peter Mullan from the exceptional Session 9) old building upon his death and given the deed (not at all unusually signed with a cryptic pen on a document she doesn’t read or even really look at) to the property. Unbenhost to her, she has also inherited a monster in the basement which can allow anyone to speak to their dead loved ones.

All that time was spent crafting a backstory for a monster with potential, and it’s wasted. Still, I give the film 2 stars because it does have a decent atmosphere, and the building is a good backdrop. We don’t really learn much about Iris herself to care a lot about her, and her nagging best friend along for the ride is of no use. It just plays it really safe in the confines of its runtime. This would have been a better-limited series where they could have explored the history of the monster and let us get to know Iris just a bit better. 

I just cannot get behind plots which require people to make inexplicable choices. Now, you can argue that it was the monster doing it, and that likely is correct, but it still does not make it any more interesting. You’re just wanting to yell at the screen, “Just sell the pub to the idiot who wants to talk to her and make it his problem!” and many other things. 

Overall I don’t recommend it as there are a lot of better films out there to spend your time with.