Baghead (2023 film)

Baghead is a 2023 horror film directed by Alberto Corredor and starring Freya Allan.

Premise
After inheriting a pub from her late father, A young woman discovers an entity that can help you speak to the dead, but at a cost.

Plot
Owen Lark, a Scottish man who owns a British-style pub in Berlin named The Queen's Head, is visited by a young man named Neil who asks to 'speak to her' and that he 'needs answers', offering Owen money. Owen refuses and sends him away before recording a video in which he says that he is done with the pub, and warning any potential future owner that the building comes complete with guardianship of someone that lives in the basement. He goes to the basement and douses the being, seemingly a woman, in flammable liquid. The woman shocks Owen into setting himself on fire, killing him.

Owen's estranged daughter Iris is called from her home in London to identify her father's body. Once there, she is approached by a solicitor, who offers to be executor of Owen's will, making the transition process to new ownership simple. Iris stays at the pub that night and, whilst investigating a noise downstairs, is accosted by Neil. He offers her €4000 to visit the woman in the basement. Iris tells him to return the following day.

The next day, realising there is the potential to make money from visitors, Iris signs over the deed to the pub to herself, making her the new owner. The Solicitor gives her an instruction package from her father, including the video. Iris' friend Katie arrives to stay with her and the two of them accompany Neil down to the basement. There, an old wooden chair sits in the centre of the room opposite another chair, behind which is a brick wall with a large hole in it. Neil calls into the hole, and a woman walks through with a sackcloth bag over her head. Iris, as owner of the building, is able to command Baghead to sit down. Neil straps Baghead to the chair and gives her a ring, asking to speak to his wife. Baghead transforms into a different woman, Neil's mother, who taunts and attacks him. Iris puts the bag back on her head and commands her to return to the hole in the wall.

Iris and Katie watch Owen's video. He explains that Baghead has the power to bring back the dead for the living to speak to, but that interactions should be limited to two minutes; any longer and Baghead grows stronger and won't stay contained, which could lead to her escaping the basement. He also reveals that he was forced to neglect his family, including Iris, to enforce Baghead's custody. Iris convinces Katie that they should stay long enough to make money for themselves. She commands Baghead to remain in the basement.

Alone in the pub, Katie investigates the pub's previous owners, one of whom was Otto Vogler, who took his own life. Vogler is in a framed photograph from 1972 on the wall, pictured standing next to the Solicitor. Iris visits Neil. He explains that Owen had an arrangement whereby you pay him €2000, and he allows you two minutes with Baghead. Offering her an item that belonged to the deceased will allow you to speak with a loved one. Iris allows him to visit Baghead, who finally transforms into his wife Sarah, who died in a car accident. It is revealed that Neil actually wanted to know the name of the person that Sarah was having an affair with. The two minutes expires and Baghead attacks Iris, claiming that they are both prisoners in this building.

In a flashback to the opening scene, Owen visits Baghead, who has taken on the form of his wife Catherine. Owen tells her that he has visited to say goodbye, and he proceeds to douse the room in alcohol and petrol. Catherine admonishes him for abandoning her and leaving Iris to care for her while she was sick, before setting him alight.

Iris and Katie visit the Solicitor's office, only to find it abandoned with no forwarding address or phone number. Iris begins to show signs of obsession with the property despite Katie's warnings. After an argument, Katie leaves to track down the Solicitor. She finds an abandoned house with evidence of Vogler's and the Solicitor's links to the house.

Iris visits Baghead, who takes on the form of Owen. He shows anger that Iris is the new owner of the pub, and that he left her and Catherine to protect them. He explains that Baghead is uncontrollable and unkillable, and begs Iris not to bring him back again. She tries to burn the deed to the building, but is unable to destroy it, proving that she is now a prisoner of the building and of the creature that lives there.

Katie returns to the pub and visits Baghead, who uses a piece of paper from Vogler's house to appear as Vogler. He explains that 400 years ago, an ancient brotherhood tried a young conjurer as a witch and burned her at the stake. She returned as a vengeful spirit who destroyed their lives. The brotherhood performed a ritual which sealed the witch in an underground tomb. Centuries later the tomb was reopened by the brotherhood to abuse her power of conjuring the dead. The members of the brotherhood grew sick and died, leaving only one guardian at a time to inherit the curse - the person whose signature is on the deed. Baghead then attacks Katie and traps her in the basement.

Iris goes to the basement to hear Katie's cries for help coming from the hole in the wall. Despite her father's warnings, Iris enters the hole, behind which is a deep warren of corridors carved into the rock. Iris finds Katie's body and is chased back through the hole by Baghead, before being rescued by Neil. Iris decides to seal the hole shut in order to trap Baghead and stop her using people to gain power.

Neil sedates Iris and speaks to Baghead. He explains that he wanted to take ownership of the building so that he could speak to Sarah whenever he pleased. He tries signing his name on the deed but it fades away. Baghead turns into Sarah and Neil reveals that, on the night she died, he had sedated her before she decided to drive the car. Sarah tries to convince him to kill Iris so that he can inherit the pub and they can be together again. Neil attacks Iris and chases her trough the pub. They end up on the roof and, after a scuffle, Neil throws Iris to the ground, killing her.

Neil gives Baghead Iris' phone so that she turns into Iris. He states that he should now be in control of the building, but Iris points out that, as Neil has brought her back, she is still the owner and therefore is in control of Baghead, who attacks and kills Neil. It is revealed that the events of the story have been carefully orchestrated by Baghead who, as Iris, is finally able to walk free of the building, which burns to the ground.

Cast

 * Freya Allan as Iris Lark
 * Peter Mullan as Owen Lark
 * Anne Müller as Baghead
 * Ruby Barker as Katie
 * Jeremy Irvine as Neil
 * Julika Jenkins as Regina
 * Saffron Burrows as Catherine
 * Ned Dennehy as The Solicitor
 * Svenja Jung as Sarah

Production
The film is directed by Alberto Corredor, expanded from a 2017 short film he made of the same name, written with Lorcan Reilly. The feature length film is also written by Christina Pamies and Bryce McGuire. The cast is led by Freya Allan, Peter Mullan, Anne Müller, Jeremy Irvine and Ruby Barker. The cast also includes Julika Jenkins, Saffron Burrows, Svenja Young and Ned Dennehy.

Release
The film had a limited theatrical release in January 2024. It became able to stream on Netflix from 26 June 2024.

Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Baghead  holds an approval rating of 31% based on 32 reviews.

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian gave the film two stars out of five and said it has "some interesting touches" but felt it could be too easily compared in plot to the Australian 2022 film Talk to Me.

The film's setting in Berlin was also pointed out by some critics. Bradshaw noted that "the original setting has been uncomfortably and bafflingly transplanted to Berlin [...] without ever really explaining why and how a Scottish bloke (Mullan) came to own this “pub” in Berlin with its English name, The Queen’s Head. This creates a layer of clunky inauthenticity which scuppers it almost entirely." Similarly, Anton Bitel of Sight and Sound remarked "Baghead comes with a suitably intangible setting: an eerily depopulated, gothically lit, once divided Berlin where almost no one speaks German."