Baghead

Baghead is an expansion of a 2017 fifteen-minute short film written by Lorcan Reilly and directed by Alberto Corredor’s about a man who visits a pub and pays two thousand pounds for two minutes with a woman who can shape shift into a dead person.

Working with Corredor writers Bryce McGuire and Christina Pamies, have kept to the core of the story while expanding that and the lore behind the woman.

Iris (Freya Allan) is on her uppers in London when she receives a message that her estranged father Owen (Peter Mullan) has died and left her a pub in Berlin.

On reaching Berlin Iris meets with solicitor (Ned Dennehy) who is handling the sale and advises her to do away with it. But once in the centuries old pub, Iris is attracted to the financial potential when a desperate man Neil (Jeremy Irvine) offers her two thousand pounds and more later to see the old woman in the basement.

Iris signs the deed the next day, transferring ownership to her. Part of the package is a self-recorded VHS from her father explaining what she has inherited.

But before that Iris’s friend Catherine (Saffron Burrows) arrives from London and when Kevin returns the three go down to the basement/cellar. Here a bandaged, decrepit old woman with a bag over head comes out of a hole in the wall. Kevin wants to speak to his dead wife Sarah and gives the woman her engagement ring that she promptly swallows.

Only it’s his long dead mother who appears. Resentful at her death she viciously turns on Kevin blaming him, only to be stopped by Iris’s command.

Shaken Iris and Catherine watch the video which explains some of the background. More importantly Iris’s responsibility, though for all the potential danger she’s drawn by the potential to make some money and get out of her current rut.

Overall this builds well on the 2017 short while adding quite a lot of background to the woman in the cellar, and the job of the gatekeeper. It maintains the short’s grubby ambience.

There’s no time wasted revealing the witch and that lets the writers and director create the background story to Iris’s relation with her father, and the suppressed resentment she has towards her best friend Catherine. That comes to the fore as the pub begins to inveigle itself into Iris’s mind.

There’s also the character of Neil who understandably is grief stricken by the loss of his wife and his mother many years earlier. However this element is less convincing as the film progresses as it becomes less a need to know and an obsession with the witch.

It’s not a particularly scary film though has some very effective set pieces, with the horror mainly served up towards the end. In the main this about dread and atmosphere; the dark streets of Berlin, the decaying pub and basement providing plenty of that helped by the gloomy lighting and good production values.

It’s somewhat predicable that once the conditions are explained they will be broken in due course. That however isn’t a problem as Corredor keeps a keen eye on the visuals and the pace is even throughout, leading to an enjoyably creepy ninety minutes or so.

Baghead will be in UK cinemas from 26 January 2024.