Anyone who has experienced profound loss will understand how grief is an inherent shape-shifter. It shows up in different forms for everyone, takes up space in different ways, and changes continuously as you move through (and beyond) the process of mourning. Shudder's latest film, Daddy's Head, tackles this very phenomenon, offering a folk horror-inspired tale that is as surprisingly heartfelt as it is definitively terrifying. Indeed, the creature design in Benjamin Barfoot's film is the stuff of nightmares -- just in time for spooky season -- but it's the human characters that grab you in the end.
Daddy's Head sees a young Isaac (Rupert Turnbull) reeling from the tragic death of his father (Charles Aitken), the only family he had left after his mother passed years ago. Though she has just recently married Isaac's father, Laura (Julia Brown) becomes Isaac's legal guardian, and must decide whether she will assume the role of his full-time caregiver or place him in foster care. As it turns out, Laura has her own baggage that makes her doubt her ability to be someone's parent.
On top of everything else, grief affects her and Isaac in vastly different ways, putting a wedge in an already-strained relationship. Things worsen when a terrifying mythological creature -- with a face that looks eerily similar to Isaac's father's -- appears in their home, trying to lure Isaac away from Laura.
A Slow-Burn Dance Between Horror and Heart 3.5/5 Daddy's Head (2024)
Following his father's death, a boy and his stepmother, struggling with parenthood, are isolated in a country estate. As their relationship weakens, the boy hears eerie noises and sees a creature resembling his father. His warnings go ignored, allowing the sinister presence to tighten its hold on their lives.
Release Date October 11, 2024 Director Benjamin Barfoot Cast Julia Brown , Rupert Turnbull , Charles Aitken , Nathaniel Martello-White Main Genre Horror Writers Benjamin Barfoot Distributor(s) Shudder Streaming Service Shudder ProsBenjamin Barfoot's direction is empathetic and warm with the characters, but becomes disturbing when it needs to.Dynamic and well-written characters engage with genuinely terrifying moments and creature design. ConsThe ending is jarring and feels like it's from a different film, and no satisfactory answers explain the events. Expand
What's evident early on in Daddy's Head is the intentionality with which Barfoot handles the human characters alongside the creature feature elements. With care and patience, he takes us into the tangled feelings Isaac and Laura are juggling, both collectively and individually. On the one hand, Isaac is a boy who has already had to face some of the most heartbreaking things a person can experience; and, on the other, Laura is an adult who, like many of us, hasn't fully figured out how to navigate this difficult world we live in.
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They're two broken souls, brought together by a shared love, and now forced to learn how to move on without that love. Toeing the line between family and stranger, theirs is a fascinating dynamic that wholly enriches the film -- the beating heart that gives it life.
It helps that Barfoot approaches Daddy's Head with patience, giving us ample time to familiarize ourselves with Isaac, Laura, and the luxuriously modern home-in-the-middle-of-the-woods that Isaac's father designed for them. Typically, glass-and-steel homes of today can feel sterile, even lifeless to look at, and while that might be the initial impression here, Barfoot quickly -- and cleverly -- dispels that notion. From Isaac's sketches to his father's loose paperwork, to even the way Laura throws herself on the living room couch, the house teems with memories and family history.
The Terrifying Creature in Daddy's Head
This isn't, of course, to say that Daddy's Head sacrifices any of its fear factor for the sake of character exposition and development. On the contrary, it's a slow-burn dance between the two: while Barfoot carefully treads through Isaac and Laura's current emotional circumstances, he also shows the evil lurking and growing around them. Whether it's the grotesque imagery of Isaac's drawings, the indefatigable barking of the family dog (and its anxiety-inducing sprint into the dark woods), or the recurring shot of the kitchen knife block missing one of its blades, the film's bowstring is pulled farther and farther back.
Indeed, Barfoot builds a lot of tension with very little, allowing silence and stillness to fill the screen with dread. This ultimately makes it much more terrifying -- and, by extension, satisfying -- when we finally get glimpses of the humanoid creature haunting Isaac and Laura.
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One look at the creature in Daddy's Head, and there's no denying just how terrifying it is. Black, like Scarlett Johansson's character in Under the Skin, with a physicality akin to the Xenomorph in the Alien franchise; someone's worst nightmares seemed to conjure up a creature design this scary. More than just the overall look, however, what makes this design effective in raising the hair on the back of your neck is how Barfoot fuses it with the familiar. Before the climax, the creature mostly takes the form of Isaac's father in face and voice. Here, Aitken is positively creepy, contorting his face and distorting his voice just enough that it feels human to Isaac but downright unnatural to us.
Unresolved Mysteries & Disappointing Endings Close
Where the creature in Daddy's Head might lose audiences is in the film's insistence upon its mysterious origins. Not much is explained about how it came into existence and why it's haunting/hunting Isaac and Laura. You could read the creature as a manifestation of the grief the two are struggling to overcome, particularly Isaac, who wishes for nothing more than to see his father again.
You could also understand the creature to be some sort of mythological entity that lives in the woods surrounding Isaac and Laura's home, and interpret the film as a sort of struggle between the human and the supernatural. Either of these, and other, interpretations can work -- the beauty of film is, after all, how it ignites your imagination -- but there's a shot in the final sequence of the film that elicits dissatisfaction more than invites curiosity.
In fact, the ending of Daddy's Head seems somewhat out of touch with the rest of the movie. Whereas the beginning and middle were patient discoveries of character and creature, the finale feels like a forced effort to tie a neat bow over everything that has happened. Which is somewhat disappointing considering how distinct Barfoot's direction is throughout the film. Nonetheless, Barfoot establishes himself as a definitive up-and-coming filmmaker, and his is a voice that will be exciting to watch grow in modern cinema. In any case, Daddy's Head is worth watching just to see the creative choices he makes.
Daddy's Head releases on Shudder on October 11.