The one adequate scare and a dark, gloomy set can’t save this soulless horror. With ineffective jump scares, awful acting, a bad script and terrible effects, Baghead is the worst horror I saw from 2023 (I know it’s 2024, but I’m in the UK so it takes a while to trickledown) and I really didn’t like Exorcist: Believer!
Plot
Iris (Freya Allan) is in her twenties, broke, and has one friend, Katie (Ruby Barker of Bridgerton fame). So when her father (Peter Mullan) dies and leaves her a spooky pub in Germany, she decides to check it out.
Enter Neil (Jeremy Irvine), who informs her a mysterious being lives in the basement and he will pay her thousands of euros to see the being. The woman (titular Baghead) has the power to take on the form of any dead person and Neil wants to see his deceased wife.
Iris agrees (Katie is less amenable) and they encounter Baghead, who Iris can control because she owns the pub. But where did the being come from? Will Baghead listen to Iris’ commands? Iris and Katie slowly find out all is not right (well duh, there’s a being in the basement that can become dead people) and horror, death and destruction ensue.
Review
Sometimes, when I see a bad horror, I say something like “if you’re a horror fan and you have nothing to do, go ahead!” I will not do that here – Baghead crosses from bad-but-see-it-anyway into so-bad-I’m-kinda-mad. My only saving grace was laughing at the bad writing, acting and plot points and this really shouldn’t be the case. It’s not a surprise, with horror like this being released, that people turn their noses up at it.
Let’s start with the plot/writing… adapted from the short film by Lorcan Reilly, it follows the same premise of guy who wants to see dead wife, but expands using unnecessary backstory and bad exposition to baby the audience. The writing is terrible with lines like “you need to move on”… “I don’t want to do that” – a simple “I don’t want to” or “I can’t” would have served much better. The story itself was fine, but should have stayed as a short – there was no need for the over-explained history of how Baghead came to be, let spook be mysterious!
It’s easy to blame writing for everything, but the acting was really a sight to behold. Let’s start with the truly dire, Neil. I’m not a fan of badmouthing actors, because boy I couldn’t do it, but Jeremy Irvine was almost too bad to stand; he had a wild range, flipping between expressionless line dropping, yelling with zero emotion and severe over-acting. Ruby Barker as the friend was completely dead, she was entirely one note, which is a shame because she’s actually good in Bridgerton. Freya Allan as our lead was… fine. She had a little more skill in the emotions department than the other two, but she was by no means good. Peter Mullan did what he could with a bad script and a small part, so thanks Peter, for that.
The horror was barely there and when it was, it wasn’t scary. They did classic jump-scare tropes and overused CGI effects (god the fire looked awful). There’s a scene where someone rips off their face to reveal a bag underneath – you’d think they’d be a little gore there, but nope, no sign of blood or torn flesh. The set, a drafty, dark pub, was probably the only good part of the film. I spent most of it thinking “why doesn’t she light a fire in the fireplace, there’s wood RIGHT THERE!”
My last bit of rant will be that there was zero reason for this to have been set in Germany. Not one character (bar the not needed flashback) was German – it would have made sense for Neil to be) and there was no explanation as to why the pub was!
If you want a good horror about talking to the dead, go with Talk to Me and leave Baghead to bomb at the boxoffice.
1/5 stars, if you’re into that.
That Horror Chick 