The Witcher star's new horror lands mixed reviews
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The first reviews are divided over The Witcher star Freya Allan's new movie Baghead.
Allan stars in the horror film as a grieving young woman, Iris, who inherits a pub that holds a terrifying secret in its cellar.
Iris and her best friend Katie, played by Bridgerton's Ruby Barker, find that the cellar houses a shape-shifting creature called Baghead (Anne Müller), who can channel spirits from 'the other side'... for a lethal price.
Iris tries to use the creature's powers to her advantage, though she's eventually forced to confront its dark nature head-on.
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The film is an adaptation of Alberto Corredor's 2017 short of the same name and also features Saffron Burrows (You), Peter Mullan (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) and Jeremy Irvine (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again).
Baghead has thus far divided critics, with praise for the inventive monster with its burlap sack mask while others felt the high-concept premise isn't fully realised.
Several critics have compared the film's supernatural twist unfavorably to the Australian horror hit Talk to Me, which was both a critical and financial hit last summer for A24.
Below is a selection of reviews for Baghead:
Mashable
"Ultimately Baghead has a few promising threads, but the end result is misshapen sack. Watch Talk To Me instead."
The Guardian
"The extravagant absurdity of this chiller from screenwriter Lorcan Reilly and director Alberto Corredor might conceivably get it an audience. There are some interesting touches, but horror fans might well feel that it’s just too similar to the recent and frankly superior Australian film Talk to Me – though it must be said that Talk to Me was made well after Reilly and Corredor’s original 2017 short, with the same high concept, on which this is based."
Film Focus Online
"Despite it's chilling unique location and it's promising cast, Baghead bites off more than it can chew and fails to fill out it's feature-length run-time with suitable scares."
Time Out
"A thing with a burlap sack on its head may not sound scary, but neither does a whitewashed Captain Kirk Halloween mask or novelty ghost face until they come at you with a kitchen knife. Like those horror icons, this sack-faced ghoul deserves another outing."
Dread Central
"After watching the hessian-headed hag emerge limping from the shadows a few times the audience is as restless as this paranormal prisoner. Instead of refining an interesting notion, Corredor resorts to some of the oldest tricks in the book, including research images sourced from old texts that explain Baghead’s origins and many uninspired twists. Alongside the overused flashback montage revealing the villain’s deceitful plot, which is a lazy narrative tool that should have been buried alongside the dead. Pair this with the limp sentimental monologues from the mouths of the deceased and unsettled resentments from the living, it could easily be confused with a Mike Flanagan rip-off."
Baghead is now playing in UK and Irish cinemas.
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