31 Days of Halloween, Day 16- Baghead (2008)

Directed by: Mark and Jay Duplass

Top 8 Cast: Elise Muller, Steve Zissis, Ross Partridge, Greta Gerwig, Jett Garner, Anthony Cristo, Jennifer Lafleur, Cass Nauman

Plot: Four wannabe filmmakers, after getting kicked out of the festival after-party, decide to make a movie of their own. They retire to a Big Bear cabin with nary an idea in their heads and a lot of interpersonal dilemmas. Matt and Catherine are broken up but they still have some feelings. Chad would love to be with Michelle but Michelle keeps friend-zoning him. Matt and Michelle want to get it on but Matt is bro-coded by Chad. Oh, and there may be a Jason Voorhees in the woods waiting to stalk and slash them all.

Response: Film bro rough-housing with yer girl on the lake. Bud-Lite-fueled creative process. Is the baghead a goof? One of them? Or a stray maniac from another movie? Betrays the influence of Cassavetes. Maybe Baghead’s a woods entity. Or an escapee from a nearby mental asylum. Maybe Baghead’s a tulpa, manifested from all their frustrated creative ambition and unmet sexual energy. Whodunnit: Mumblecore edition. Folksy guitar strums: our flag in twilight. Chad looking Belushi af. Echoes of Blair Witch.

Background: This is the second feature of Mark and Jay Duplass, filmmaking brothers, actors, writers and founders of Duplass Brothers Productions. Critically they are regarded as seminal figures in the Mumblecore scene. Mumblecore was a de facto grouping of early aughts independent cinematic offerings by them and filmmakers such as Joe Swanberg, Lyn Shelton, Andrew Bujalski, Ry Russo-Young, etc… Films defined by their naturalism, low-budget, and often improvisational scripts or script components. A sorta do-it-yourself American Dogma 95 but without all the rules. I personally prefer the portmanteau Slackavettes (pointing to two of the subgenere’s main creative god-uncles: Linklater’s Slacker and John Cassavetes.*)

I’m not sure if it was ever an intentional movement with the film-makers planning together, posting manifestos and whatnot, or if it was an after-the-fact grouping by academics like how the Theatre of the Absurd became such courtesy of Martin Esslin and not by any conscious effort on behalf of it’s figureheads (Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, etc..)

Baghead was shot on handheld HD mini DV digital cameras. It’s not a found footage or home video movie but it shares those aesthetics. The actors were given free reign to improvise.

Analysis: I had a preconceived notion that this was gonna be an indie slasher spoof, maybe kinda like how our Day 10 film was. But it’s more not-that than that. Unmasked Part 25 both poked fun at the genre as well as being a gruesome example of it. Baghead does neither. Sure, it’s titular boogeyman is a direct reference to our favorite winter-sport-loving zombie slasher’s appearance in Friday the 13th Part 2 but that’s where the knowing references start and end. It’s far more of a loving lampoon of indie film-making and its practioners themselves. Emphasis on the word loving, another aspect that sets it apart from our other slasher lark. While both films take the plight of their characters seriously (to kinda mind-boggling extents in Unmasked) this one feels both more caring and more believable. I suppose that’s the “naturalism” part of Mumblecore.

All four leads here are beautifully and sweetly rendered.

Chad is the sort of incel that only 2008 would render. An incel-with-a-heart-of-gold if you will, more sweetly pathetic than creepy and far too puppyish to be threatening. Yet the mounting dread of the external baghead and the mystery surrounding its inhabitant does allow us to cast our suspicious eye towards the ways entitlement commingle with need even if the film ultimately comes to Chad’s side rewarding him with ice cream if not the girl.

Gerwig’s Michelle is also knowingly realized. The film and the actress are smart enough not to cast her as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl** but as a young woman playing a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in order to survive the world of the male gaze. She knows she is wanted by both men and has found survival in playing into their want while also having good morals and wants of her own.

Patridges’s Matt is great as the team’s alpha but early scenes like the one where he pretends his wallet is a flip phone to gain access to the after-party reveal that he is leader of this foursome only. To the rest of the world less impressed by his ambitions and “Elvis hair” he is also a loser. This knowing social layering is part of Baghead’s brilliance.

But maybe the most fun role is Muller’s Catherine. Conventional hot and popular girl who gets to be a human weirdo too in equally nuanced and sharp ways.

The film also shares some thematics with Jordan Peele’s Nope especially in the “do-anything-but-get-the-shot” sentiments. Both trouble this but Nope troubles it further in fascinating and paradoxical ways with it’s intricate weaving in of a multitude of metaphoric meanings.

As far as the horror goes, it’s mostly of the suspense and creepy dread variety so I’d probably warn hardcore slasher fans away while welcoming in those that like to see loveable losers navigate life and terror.

Alternate Fantasy Ending: SPOILERS but the pic closes with Chad in traction, a rich, funny and poignant scene between the bros and Michelle resting, to Chad’s delight, with her head near his on the hospital bed. It would ruin a good close and utterly alter the vibe but my imagination pictured a whole ‘nother ending.

What if, before things got too sentimental, when the characters were resting in seeming safety, we got one of those horror twist fake-outs, and Baghead knifed his way out from within Chad’s body as he lay in traction. How did Baghdad get in Chad’s body? Who cares, it’s weird and terrifying and would provide the gore the film otherwise lacks. The other three run screaming in terror AND

the camera pulls back to reveal a film-within-a-film. We are back in the film festival screening room from the beginning only now, instead of our leads, the people in the audience are all Jasons, Draculas and Lon Chaney Wolf Men. Jett Garner runs down the aisle with a shit-eating grin to take questions. He gets to the front and smiles out at everybody. His smile slowly fades. We linger on him standing there, no longer smiling, for a bit too long. Maybe it cuts to a wide shot of him still standing there, thinking about all that’s gone on. Thinking. Slow fade to black. Cue the J. Scott Howard song.

I think that could be good.

Scores:

Autumn Vibes: 1/5

Scares & Chills: 2/5

Cultural & Cinematic Importance: 4/5

Monster Action: 0/5

Second Opinions:

“In terms of the comedy, Baghead isn’t really the type of movie that would make you laugh out loud. It’s not trying for that. In a sense, it’s too realistic to do that. Yet it is the type of movie that might repeatedly bring a smile to your face, or even small chuckles. That’s what it did to me. It touches on a lot of different emotions, and for that reason, it’s worth the watch.” - D. Aaron Schewighardt, Film Obsessive

“Baghead’s use of improvised dialogue and deliberately rough editing have led to its classification as a “mumblecore” film... But the movie’s concern with its characters’ shifting alliances and petty vanities also evokes early John Sayles and, at times, Eric Rohmer... What we’d been watching all along as a campy horror spoof turns out to be a soulful little comedy about friendship, betrayal, and the fear of revealing who you really are—whether or not there’s a grocery sack on your head.”  - Dana Stevens, Slate

“Had to watch this for my Greta gerwig class. shit. So fucking shit. Shit maxxing. Never seen a more boring film in my life, love Greta but damn girl you had a rough start in the industry. Shit plot, shitty filming kept zooming in and out like a bitch.” - RenD928 on Letterboxed

“Sometimes funny and romantic, other times a movie that will scare the crap out of you, Baghead proves itself an excellent low-budget indie film.” - unnamed audience review on rotten tomatoes