Twisty Baghead an Entertaining Ride

It's a simple enough premise. Four barely working actors; Chad (Steve Zissis), Matt (Ross Partridge), Michelle (Greta Gerwig) and Catherine (Elise Muller); head off for a weekend in the country at a secluded cottage to write the script for an independent feature which will hopefully launch their careers up to the next level. Things begin to get odd when a mysterious stranger appears outside wearing a paper bag over his head. That mystery grows dangerous as the weekend comes to an end, the true motives of the disturbingly quiet masked figure putting all of them squarely atop the razor's edge.

It's what's underneath that's frightening in Sony Pictures Classics' Baghead

While Baghead does not betray its low budget independent roots, Jay and Mark Duplass’ follow up to their wonderful The Puffy Chair is certainly more than a bit unusual. It is without a doubt one of the most decidedly different drama-slash-comedy-slash-thrillers-slash-curio pieces I think I might have ever seen. It’s also the first picture I can recall having a fellow critic accidentally slap me smack-dab right in the face because something onscreen startled her, a laudable (if more than a tad painful) turn of events for the filmmakers if I do say so myself.

Seriously, this amateurishly acted silly little glorified B-movie is one heck of a lot of fun. It plays on all your worst fears and then some, delicately manufacturing delightful feelings of omnipresent menacing dread that’s deliciously exhilarating. It bobs and weaves this way and that, twisting and turning back in on itself time and time again, and just as you think you’ve got it all figured out it morphs once more to become a new thing decidedly unexpected.

But it isn’t the thrills and chills that make Baghead such a treat. Slowly but surely (well, as slowly and surely as is possible in 88 briskly moving minutes) the writer/director siblings deftly evolve their tale of growing dread into a surprisingly prescient drama involving the creative process. What is it that inspires us? What gives us our ideas and moves us to put them to paper? What are we willing to do to see our visions brought to life exactly as we had imagined them?

This is ultimately what the Duplass brothers are interested in, what it is they want to talk about, and if their movie just so happens to, at times, scare the living daylights out of you then that’s even better. The film is a character driven piece about artists facing a highly unusual situation and doing so with the just the right amount of dark humor, incredulity, anger, frustration and, yes, fear as you would expect if you were faced with a similar situation.

Don’t get me wrong. This is all still pretty slight, and it goes without saying that the idea of a potential threat lurking outside with a paper bag over their head is admittedly kind of silly. But it works, that sense of unknown dread prowling behind a brownish exterior with only two cutout holes for eyes sending shivers right down my spine right around the second or third time he ominously appeared. 

Expertly edited by The Puffy Chair collaborator Jay Deuby and shot with naturalistic bird’s eye candor by co-director Jay, there is much to enjoy about this fast, funny and frightening little adventure. Baghead is a good time that leaves you with tons to talk about as soon as the final twists are revealed and the end credits come upon the screen. It isn’t going to change lives but it is going to entertain, and in my line of work that’s probably the single most important trait for any film to possess out of all of them.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Interview with Mark and Jay Duplass by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-  Baghead Theatrical Trailer