Baghead – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 35 minutes, Director – Alberto Corredor

Iris (Freya Allan) inherits a pub from her late, distant father (Pete Mullan), however in the basement lies a creature with the power to let people speak to their deceased loved ones, but not without forming a connection with the bereaved.

In 1970s Britain, and some of the years since, Bagpuss was a warm figure of many childhoods. The saggy, old cloth cat who awoke whenever owner Emily told him to see what new thing she had brought to her cozy shop. The pink and white cat would wake up, alongside a collection of other toys and ornaments, to inspect whichever lost item Emily had found and brought back with her and over the course of 15 minutes would discuss and repair it. A quaint and innocent set of events. Baghead, on the other hand, is unlikely to be a distant relative as instead this particular creature will gradually break down the people providing it with items, working its way into their heads beyond the basement of an abandoned pub.

The items belong to deceased relatives which people willing to pay a hefty sum provide ‘Baghead’ – never actually called that in the film, in fact the word is never once said – with in the hope of speaking to their loved ones just one more time. However, there are those who keep coming back, this is the case for Jeremy Irvine’s Neil as he insists new owner of The Queen’s Head Iris (Freya Allan) let him see the figure in the basement. Soon, Iris, who has inherited the pub from her late, distant father (Peter Mullan), finds herself keeping the building, just for a short amount of time, instead of selling it off immediately.

Alongside best friend Katie (Ruby Barker) the pair begin to witness the extent of Baghead’s powers, and the attachment she forms with those using her for communication with the dead. The rules put in place in a video left by Mullan’s character begin to be bent and ignored as greed and addiction consume. They may be traditional points for a horror flick, and certainly there’s nothing wrong with this, however as the film moves along it almost seems to lose faith in itself.

Based on a short of the same name, there’s plenty of atmosphere to help move things along for the first half hour, yet the remaining hour, while still featuring similar tones, never quite seems to have the same strength. Glimmers of the past feelings arise every now and then, but as a whole things almost get bogged down in a cycle of attacks and risk as Baghead proves that her curse is perhaps stronger than the will of the lacklustre living. Yet, when such moments arise the film can’t help but stumble as it explains much of its events as it’s happening, almost providing its own commentary – whilst researching the history of the pub and its previous owners Katie can’t help but read everything we’re seeing on screen out loud just to push the point across.

Occasional jump scares become less effective as they become more obvious and overall as the run-time progresses the momentum decreases. The initially creepy air that surrounded the proceedings is no longer present and as a whole the film feels largely ineffective and rather bland. The character of Baghead feels less of a character and more of a plot device until backstory is provided in the latter stages of the narrative before an ending which, while interesting, would likely have greater impact if you had more of a connection with the characters and the build-up had more of a push, and unsettling nature.

While initially conjuring some interesting atmosphere Baghead seems to lose faith in itself as its titular antagonist feels more of a plot device than a character to push forward the increasingly ineffective scares in the cyclical narrative.