Baghead (2008)

I watched ‘Baghead’ yesterday. Not sure why. It came into my possession a few months back and I just never really got round to watching it until today. Still not sure why I decided to watch it now though.

I guess I might as well explain the plot. Four friends get together at a cabin in the woods (Not that movie...as much as I wish it was) in order to write a film after seeing a friend’s successful low budget production. After initially struggling, Michelle (Greta Gerwig) says she had a scary dream of a guy wearing a bag on his head. Matt (Ross Partridge) decides that this is a really good concept and they start working on it. But did Michelle actually dream it? Of course she didn’t. We wouldn’t have a movie then.

I want to say stuff about this film, but I am really struggling to do so. Why? Because, for the most part, this film is completely and utterly BORING. That’s basically it. The build up is extremely slow. I’ll try my best to explain the movie, but, it was soooooooo dull.

It’s a film so boring even the title card does little to grab your attention. I mean, you know how most films grab your attention by doing some sort of theme with the title card? ‘Star Wars’ had the infamous score, Bond films have the action sequence followed by the Bond theme and film song, ‘Baghead’ just puts its title card on a black screen with white lettering. There’s not even a hint of music.

For a majority of the film all we get is talking, talking and more talking. And it’s not like ‘Lost in Translation’ where the conversation is enticing or keeps you intrigued, oh no, we just get the same characters droning on and on, staying bland throughout. In the film’s defence this is all character development, but there’s nothing interesting at all about what they’re saying or who they are.

Their acting doesn’t help either, with pretty much all of them hardly expressing any emotion. Well, okay I lie, they hardly express an emotion for a majority of the film. There are some odd bits and pieces where Steve Zissis, who plays Chad, and Partridge have some pretty emotional scenes and Gerwig and Elise Muller, who plays Catherine, raise an eyebrow, but there’s nothing interesting to be found really.

While looking online for more information on this film, well, if you look this up on Wikipedia, there’s only currently six lines on this film. SIX. And on Wikipedia and IMDB, this film is apparently classed as a horror/comedy. THIS WAS A COMEDY?! Where were the jokes? Where was the humour? Where were the laughs? In fact, if you look at this film on IMDB, Wikipedia, and a majority of other sites, you’d find the poster for this film is the four main characters, in bed, with paper bags over their heads. Not only does this not happen in the film, but I got a different cover. This one to your right. Doesn’t this just spell out comedy?

I am seriously struggling to say anything about this film. Let’s talk about the plot shall we? It’s one of those is the thing real or fake movies where it mixes dreams and reality, you know, like the brilliant ‘Inception’ or, for a better example, ‘Cry Wolf’, but less stupid.

Watching the film is a dull experience, there’s no question about it. Thinking about the film however, that’s where it actually gets interesting. Initially the group were planning to write a romantic film involving Chad and Michelle. When Michelle tells the group about her dream Matt decides it would be better to do a horror film. This prompted me to wonder why they just do both, especially since most films, whether they be horror, action, or thriller, have a romantic interest/sub-plot anyway. But, then it hit me. About twenty minutes towards the end, that’s what THIS film is! It’s a film about the growing romance between Chad and Michelle, but then a horror element is also present with the character of Bagman.

I can only guess the other sixty minutes bored me so much I didn’t notice until it was too late. And it did since I kept wondering when something was going to happen. Things did pick up when Bagman finally appeared, and it’s about time the true star of Resident Evil 5 had his own film. I guess where a film has “The most inventive horror film in years” and “Baghead delivers more scares than Jason & Michael Myers combined”, I kind of expected more.

For a low budget production it was fairly okay, it was just unfortunate that the film is so boring. For a drama, it’s pretty decent. For a horror, the scares are lazy and predictable. For a comedy, WHERE’S THE COMEDY?! Altogether the film just lacks any essence and fascination. I suppose I can say it’s not as dull as ‘The Devil Within’ where I did fall asleep watching it. If only Bagman was in a much better film, one where I can actually enjoy what I’m watching.

Spoiler Alert:

If there wasn’t actually a Bagman, then who was the person that Michelle saw in the woods?