BAGHEAD (2023)

Studio:   StudioCanal/Shudder
Director: Alberto Corredor
Writer:   Christina Pamies, Bryce McGuire
Producer: Alex Heineman, Andrew Rona
Stars:    Freya Allan, Jeremy Irvine, Ruby Barker, Anne Muller, Svenja Jung, Julika Jenkins, Ned Dennehy, Saffron Burrows, Peter Mullan

Review Score:

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Summary:

Following her estranged father's death, a young woman inherits a pub that comes with the curse of a mysterious creature locked in the basement.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

At the centuries-old Queen's Head pub in Berlin, proprietor Owen Lark turns down an offer from grieving widower Neil Solwey to pay for a session with "Baghead," a shapeshifting creature locked in the pub's basement who is capable of communicating with the dead. Tired of the curse that ties him to the entity, Owen records a warning video for the next person who will take over stewardship of the pub as well as Baghead. Owen tries to set fire to the pub, but Baghead ends up immolating him instead.

Owen's estranged daughter Iris, who hasn't seen her father in years and is desperate for money, learns of his death when a mysterious "Solicitor" contacts her about inheriting the pub. Forced to spend the night in the pub because she was recently evicted, Iris has a surprise encounter with Neil, who offers thousands of dollars to visit the locked basement so he can see his dead wife Sarah. Although confused by Neil's request, Iris tells Neil to return the following evening after she has obtained the cellar key.

Iris visits the Solicitor's office to sign the deed giving her ownership of the pub. The Solicitor gives Iris the basement key along with a videotape from Owen labeled "Instructions."

Iris's best friend Katie joins Iris. With both of them experiencing financial shortfalls, Iris tells Katie about the man willing to pay several thousand dollars to enter the basement, presumably for some sort of scare.

Neil returns to the pub. Iris and Katie escort him to the cellar. Baghead, who wears a sack over her head, emerges from a dark hole in the wall. Katie grows worried while Iris is suddenly fascinated. Baghead creeps toward Iris, but she stops when Iris commands her to back off. Realizing Baghead obeys her, Iris instructs the creature to sit in a chair for Neil.

Expecting Baghead to morph into his wife Sarah who died the previous year, Neil gives Baghead a wedding ring that she swallows. Because the ring was an heirloom, Baghead instead morphs into Neil's dead mother Regina. After two minutes elapses, Baghead uses Regina to taunt Neil by blaming him for his mother's suicide. Baghead attacks Neil until Iris replaces the sack on her head. Baghead reverts to her creature form, vomits the ring, and returns to the wall upon Iris's command.

Claiming he still wishes to say goodbye to his wife, Neil insists on a second session with Baghead. Because of the eerie experience's intensity, Iris and Katie both tell him no.

Iris and Katie watch Owen's videotape. From Owen's instructions, the women learn Baghead is now linked to Iris because she signed the deed. Owen warns not to use Baghead's ability and to never step into the other side of the hole in the wall. Owen adds that Baghead can only summon the dead for two minutes, and any time beyond that will permit her to grow stronger. Owen also advises that if Iris tries to leave, Baghead will get inside her mind and sickness and death will follow. Owen's final words warn that Baghead's only goal is to be set free, and Iris is the sole guardian standing between her and the outside world.

Believing she can keep everyone safe because she now knows the "rules," Iris reconsiders allowing Neil to return. Katie tries talking Iris out of the idea, but she reluctantly relents when Iris insists that they need the money.

While Iris visits Neil, paranormal activity leads Katie to find an old photograph featuring the Solicitor with a man named Otto Vogler in the German town of Friedland. Further research reveals Vogler was a previous owner of the pub who killed himself. Katie briefly sees Vogler's ghost.

Neil's dead wife Sarah finally appears during his second session with Baghead. Contrary to what he claimed about wanting closure, Neil surprisingly confronts Sarah with a demand to know if she planned to leave him for someone else. After the two-minute timer expires, Baghead again taunts Neil while Iris has trouble containing her. Baghead cryptically tells Iris, "We are both prisoners" before returning to the wall.

In a nightmare, Iris witnesses a flashback that shows Owen using Baghead to speak with Iris's dead mother Catherine. Their confrontational conversation ends with Owen dousing Baghead and the basement in gasoline. Owen ends up burning to death after Baghead accuses him of being the real monster for allowing Catherine to rot from her sickness.

Iris wakes from the nightmare to find herself choking. Katie rescues her. Afterward, the two women visit the Solicitor's office only to find it abandoned.

Katie warns Iris that Baghead is haunting her mind. Iris angrily insults Katie after insisting that the pub is now the only thing keeping her from living a depressingly ordinary life.

Following the photograph clue, Katie drives to Friedland alone. In Otto Vogler's former residence, Katie collects a pile of clippings documenting Vogler's attempts to find a way out of the unholy pact with Baghead.

Iris uses Baghead to see her father. Owen explains that they became estranged because he was tethered to the pub and he didn't want their family involved. Owen also warns that Iris cannot escape Baghead while her name is on the deed. Finally, he asks for forgiveness and tells Iris not to summon him again. Afterward, Iris sets fire to the deed but it does not burn.

Katie returns to the pub's basement where Baghead takes the form of Otto Vogler. Vogler explains that 400 years ago, an ancient brotherhood discovered a woman who could conjure the dead. When she refused their attempts to abuse her power, they branded her a witch and burned her at the stake. The witch soon rose from the dead with ruthless vengeance that spread plagues among their crops, livestock, and people. The brotherhood then performed a dark ritual to imprison her in a tomb that became the pub's cellar. Centuries later, the brotherhood's descendants opened the tomb to access her power again. The more they used her, however, the more powerful she became while they grew sicker and died. Now only one guardian stands between her and the outside world. Whoever signs the deed inherits the curse and must prevent her from releasing her revenge.

Upon realizing Katie isn't the gatekeeper, the Vogler vision attacks her. Not long after, the sound of Katie's pleas lure Iris into the tunnels behind the hole in the wall. There, Iris finds Katie's dead body and realizes Baghead trapped her.

Neil unexpectedly rescues Iris. Together, they devise a plan to permanently seal up the basement. However, while Iris is groggy from pills he provides her, Neil secretly sneaks to the basement where he appeals to Baghead to become her new owner. Neil tries signing his name on the deed, but his signature burns away.

Baghead morphs into Neil's dead wife Sarah. Sarah accuses Neil of drugging her during what would be their last dinner together. Neil tearfully claims he only wanted to give Sarah something to calm her down from an argument, and he didn't know she would subsequently go driving. Sarah reveals she was also pregnant, making Neil responsible for two deaths. Once Baghead takes over again, Sarah compels Neil to kill Iris.

Having eavesdropped on most of the encounter, Iris flees up to the roof with Neil in pursuit. Following a struggle, Neil kills Iris by throwing her onto the pavement below.

Neil returns to Baghead. Neil tells Baghead to bring back Iris so she can transfer his name to the deed. Baghead explains that since Iris's name is still on the deed, her death now effectively makes Iris and Baghead the same entity, which gives Baghead her freedom because she no longer has an owner.

Baghead morphs into Sarah to kill Neil. The deed and the sack mask burst into flames. As Iris, Baghead walks out of the pub while it erupts in fire behind her.

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Review:

In the best possible way, "Baghead" gives off vague "Friday the 13th: The Series" vibes at its outset. If you recall that cult classic show's premiere episode, storeowner Lewis Vendredi, who made a deal with The Devil to sell cursed antiques in exchange for immortality, suddenly has second thoughts about the pact he's profited off of for years. Fearful of yet another family unknowingly inviting evil into their home, Lewis refuses to sell their daughter a demonic doll. Consequences come quickly though, as violating his contract causes Satan to pull Lewis down to Hell, change of heart be damned. Lewis Vendredi be damned, too.

Owen Lark lives in a German pub that could be a sister location of sorts to the Vendredi store that became Curious Goods. The Queen's Head isn't chock full of strange knick-knacks piled into every crowded corner. It's more spacious than that. But it does have the musty feel of a centuries-old building that's seen its fair share of dirty deeds done behind secret doors. Sepia-colored photographs with burn marks on their edges adorn grimy walls. Stone lions stand watch at either end of a fireplace. Curling candelabras sit next to stained-glass lamps on the bar. The place seems better suited for a seance than an after-work pint with a friend.

The brick-walled basement turns this slow-dripping dread into a steadier stream of sinister suggestions. Behind a heavy wooden door marked with odd runes and down a dark staircase dwells Baghead. Her head covered by a sack mask, Baghead is a crone-like creature capable of communicating with the dead. For years, Owen exploited the gnarled witch's ability by permitting grieving patrons to pay to see deceased loved ones. There are rules, of course. For starters, sessions can only last two minutes. Any time beyond that gives Baghead more power. Fortunately, Owen can control her to some degree because owning the pub also makes him the steward of Baghead.

One price Owen has to pay is he cannot leave the pub without risking Baghead taking over his mind, or being let loose into the world. Regrettably, this estranged Owen from his daughter Iris. Now, with the guilt of his complicity in Baghead's unholy behavior becoming too much to bear, Owen reckons it's time to destroy her. Yet like Lewis Vendredi, Owen's escape plan backfires, and he suffers a fiery fate not unlike his antique store counterpart.

Instead of two cousins, Owen's down-on-her-luck daughter Iris inherits the pub. She also inherits the curse. Despite her best friend Katie's warnings, Iris thinks she knows how to handle Baghead thanks to videotaped instructions left behind by Owen. But when a widower insistent on seeing his dead wife dangles big bucks for several sessions with Baghead, Iris gets drawn into a haunting experience with devastating ramifications in this chilling tale of living with remorse, and dying in the claws of a manipulative monster.

I have yet to see the same-named short from 2017 that "Baghead" is based on. I don't think I need to watch it to know this is an uncommon exception where something previously fitted for a 15-minute frame can justifiably extend into a feature because it possesses enough quality content to sustain a consistently gripping story. I'm equally confident that the next time we hear from director Alberto Corredor, he'll be at the helm of a big theatrical thriller, at least for Blumhouse, if not for a major Hollywood studio, because of his sharp talent for manifesting and maintaining an elegantly eerie presentation.

"Baghead" fulfills the classic criteria for a mood-based movie. It's true that the film incorporates tried-and-true tropes like a lot of cautious tiptoeing by torchlight down creaky hallways and phantom visages skulking in shadows. Yet ambient lighting and careful camera movements are so acutely in tune with each escalating step of suspense, formulaic frights are easy to ignore in favor of appreciating the delicate craftwork on display. In making its own deep mythology regarding Baghead's background, the movie builds an immersive world inside a small space capable of sucking in anyone glamoured by its witchy cinematic spell.

I'd further label "Baghead" as a textbook supernatural thriller, one which indie filmmakers would be wise to emulate. The cast is compact, consisting of only ten actors total, and action remains confined almost entirely inside a single location. Those conditions are often a cheat meant to squeeze a tight budget, but they feel natural to "Baghead's" focused narrative, not like the restrictions came first and the script followed after. It also feels so much bigger in scope. Despite the claustrophobic cellar seeping intangible horror between each mote of dust, there's a sense that Baghead's curse carries an immensity whose stakes reach wider into the outside world.

The film isn't without imperfections. Baghead's crypt-keeper appearance has its fright factor turned up high, although some spotty CGI in the form of fire as well as one scene of someone clawing off their face could have used additional doses of movie magic. Along with some iffy plotting involving a serendipitous rescue, there's also a routine exposition dump the third act could do without. I find Baghead more compelling as a mysterious enigma, so I'm not sure the full details of her origin are necessary. On the other hand, viewers who demand explanations every time a movie introduces an otherworldly element will get what they wish for.

When it remains on track, which is most of the runtime, "Baghead" hits horror's highest notes for atmospheric spookiness, bleak character drama, and thematic terror revolving around regret. Highlighted by engaging acting where even the briefest roles pull their small share of the omnipresent dread's heavy-hanging weight, "Baghead" belongs with similar creepers like "Oculus" (review here) and "Relic" (review here) for its brand of cerebral thrills. Fit for a skin-crawling double bill with "Talk to Me," "Baghead" is highly recommended for viewers who like their horror to burn slow, yet white-hot with macabre intensity.

Review Score: 80

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