Warning! This article contains spoilers for Baghead. Turn back now if you've yet to see the film and don't want to know what happens.
Unlike almost every other genre, horror movies can play fast and loose when it comes to their heroes and villains, particularly when they center around possession. In new spooky flick Baghead, several actors got a chance to be the titular shape-shifting antagonist...
Directed by Alberto Corredor, and based on his 2019 short film of the same name, the movie follows Iris (Freya Allan) as she inherits a rundown Berlin pub – and, subsequently, the ghoulish figure in its basement that has the ability to "bring back the dead". Things take a seriously sinister turn when a grieving widower name Neil (Jeremy Irvine) rocks up to The Queen's Head one night and demands to put Baghead's "gift" to good use, offering up a hefty sum of cash to talk to his late wife Sarah.
Seduced by the money, Iris eventually agrees, but their first attempt at summoning Neil's deceased ex goes awry and they wind up coming face to face with his mother instead. Before long, the pair, accompanied by Iris's best friend Katie (Ruby Barker) try again and this time, the séance proves successful, though the encounter exposes Neil as an abusive partner whom a pregnant Sarah was trying to leave at the time of her fatal car accident.
Realizing Iris's hold on Baghead and desperate for answers as to who the secret man his wife was running away with, Neil kills Iris, and then uses her cellphone to force Baghead to become her. His plan? To get her to sign the pub's deed – along with the inexplicable bond to Baghead – over to him before the two-minute limit times out. One thing he didn't think through, though, is that due to Iris being Baghead's master, Baghead is in full control once she's transformed into her murdered guardian.
"Most of us got a shot at being in the [Baghead] costume, and then Alberto would just get creative with the camera," Allan tells 12DOVE, noting how Peter Mullan, who plays Iris's ill-fated father gets a turn at one point, too. "I did have to have a double at the end when there's two of me, but that was about it. I've been possessed before, actually; in The Witcher I was possessed. It's kind of fun getting to play in the body of the character that everyone's been watching, but with someone else in there. I kind of wish I had more of those scenes in a way."
With that, we ask whether she'd be interested in doing a sequel, which is all too possible considering Baghead concludes with the eponymous entity butchering Neil, deciding she quite fancies wearing Iris's face permanently, and sauntering out of the pub as it burns it to the ground.
"There's a lot of stuff I wanna do, you know? Lots of things on my list that I need to get accomplished," Allan replies candidly. "There are certain roles that I want to play, so we'll see."
While she doesn't seem too keen to revisit the world of Baghead, if she were to make another one, Allan has one thing she'd hope her character would meet a more definitive end – and she's got the most amusing reason for wanting that, too. "I make this joke to everyone: I don't know what it is, but I always survive everything. The characters I play always survive," she laughs. "I'm waiting for the day where I fully – even in this, I was like, 'I can't wait to die!' then I was like, 'Oh, wait, no, I don't.' I'm waiting for the day I have a proper death."
Baghead is in cinemas now. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
