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This review was made possible by an advance screener of Daddy’s Head. Daddy’s Head premieres on Shudder on Friday, October 11th.
I really like when a movie can hit you with a powerful premise righty away. A quick hook to get you attached and held on. And, admittedly, some movies fail to really follow through with the promise of their initial grab, but it’s still something to keep you pondering as you watch. How will the flick resolve that early attention-getter?
I bring this up because of today’s latest Shudder offering, a horror picture called Daddy’s Head. It caught me early with an interesting plot point, and I was really excited to see where it went from there! The film kicks off with a step-mother and her step-son losing the latter’s father due to a fatal car accident. Nothing noteworthy there; I feel like I’ve seen this movie before at that point.
But from there, we quickly see that the step-mother, Laura, is struggling with the decision to keep her son Isaac (Rupert Turnbull). Child Protective Services say it would be best for the two of them to continue on together, but you can tell Laura may not actually want that, as she is non-committal and asks what the alternatives for Isaac would be.
That’s interesting! I feel like most movies or tales would just have these two band together through their grief. There may be hard times and some strife, sure, but the idea of actually broaching the subject of giving the child up to foster care would probably not emerge.
And so just a few minutes in, I was enamored of seeing where the story would go from there. How was the follow-up to this one? Would the film keep going with Laura’s internal decision-making? What would the horror elements be, and how would they work? Well…
TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS
+ Julia Brown stars in Daddy’s Head as Laura, and she does an effective job being relatable and vulnerable. She’s easily the best part of the movie. She is also a flawed character and an unreliable protagonist, as she is at least on the verge of alcoholism with how much she drinks, including being shown sneaking booze into her morning orange juice. And to Brown’s credit, she is not afraid to play Laura as a little bit unlikable. She makes faces to Isaac’s reactions to things, and her own reactions are occasionally large and overblown.
The movie really hinges on how strong of a character Laura is. She is the usual focal point for the viewer, and if she was played with less skill, the movie’s quality would plummet quickly. But luckily, Brown is more than up to the task in this one.
+ I do think sometimes that independent horror can confuse “slow burn establishment” with trying to kill time and not having the budget to do everything you want to do. And to that end, the film feels a little like the latter, especially with a first act that moves fairly glacially and offers nothing in the way of scares or intrigue.
But the Up to all of this is that the movie does pick up from its slow start, and by the time you get to the third act, things are really happening! There’s some true creepiness and some mild bloodshed, and it all feels like a decent payoff for sitting through the slower aspects of the film.
A lot of indie horror flicks never press down on the gas as well as this effort does, and I appreciate that. It’s good to find one that knows when it’s time to stop slow burning and just… burn.
– Let’s just get this out of the way: “Daddy’s Head” is a terrible name for any movie, but especially one this serious. When I first saw the title to this one, I assumed it was at least partially a horror-comedy. It’s a Shudder release, so it’s unlikely to be a pornographic movie, but with a title like Daddy’s Head, the other option has at least got to be tongue-in-cheek humor, right?
But no. This film has no levity, and the title barely means anything at all. It’s almost like they decided that every other movie title was already taken, so they just went with something that’s definitely never been used before. I mean… I guess the creature uses the dad’s face as a mask. But still… Daddy’s Head?
I just can’t get behind this choice! Even as I was in the throes of the flick and watching the horror develop, my mind would occasionally just remind me, “Daddy’s Head, huh? All right, I guess”.
– I have absolutely praised movies before for having creative monster designs and working within their limitations to keep the beast obscured so we never get a good enough look to determine how fake it may actually appear. That’s Horror 101 right there.
But the thing is… you have to show the creature full-on at SOME point, and Daddy’s Head really seems afraid to do that. We get some okay shots of the beastie, but nothing that ever allows its full ominous presence to come through and haunt us. It’s perpetually in the dark or too close-up or moving too quickly to ever feel like a fully-realized threat. I wanted to be terrorized by this thing, not just feel like it was some nebulous concept that the creators had but were scared to assail me with.
OVERALL
Daddy’s Head (sigh) has some great performances, again most notably from Julia Brown. And it does get better as it goes, which is always better than the alternative. But it is an oftentimes slow ride where it feels like little-to-nothing is happening. Until the last half hour, it’s hard to give this picture your full attention. Which is a shame because I feel like there is a really powerful sixty minute film hidden away in this one’s runtime. I just wish they would have made that one instead. Not everything needs to be ninety minutes!
★★ Out Of 5
