‘Daddy’s Head’ Review: Grief triggers fear in this atmospheric creature film

Grief haunts a little boy and his stepmother Dad’s headthe second feature film by director Benjamin Barfoot (Double date).

The film premiered at Fantastic Fest 2024, where attendees also celebrated Jennifer Kent’s 10th birthday The Babadookand it’s hard not to bring the films into the conversation. Both are about the grief of losing a father figure and a husband, both are about a woman struggling to raise a troubled boy, and both are about a terrifying creature that’s every bit as much a child’s imagination could have arisen. Still Dad’s head also goes his own way and mixes his Babadook Influences with folk horror to create a disturbing portrait of how grief can tear us apart.

what is Dad’s head around?

Before Dad’s head takes us into a nightmarish creature feature, it introduces us to a nightmare that is all too real. Young Isaac (Rupert Turnbull) must say goodbye to his father James (Charles Aitken), who is taken off life support after a devastating car accident.

Isaac has already lost his mother and since James had no next of kin, his stepmother Laura (Julia Brown) is his legal guardian. While Isaac and Laura are not close, Dad’s head avoids the image of the evil stepmother. Instead, early glimpses of home movies from when James was still alive show Laura as someone trying to understand Isaac as he deals with the arrival of a new mother figure. At some point, Laura sees how much he loves drawing and gives him a set of colored pencils. Isaac is anything but enthusiastic. It’s a quiet, brutal moment that makes you empathize with both Laura and Isaac. She’s hoping for connection while he’s still dealing with massive changes in his life.

The uncomfortable distance between Laura and Isaac becomes more tense after James’ death. Laura certainly wasn’t ready to lose her husband, let alone be the mother of his son. Every evening she numbs herself with wine and home videos while weighing the possibility of turning Isaac over to social services. Unsure of his own fate, Isaac plays games and longs for his father’s return.

You might think that a return would be impossible, considering that the film opens with flashes of his bloodied, pulverized face. Yet somehow, some aspects of James follow Isaac and Laura back to their elegant, ultra-modern home and turn their grief into a literal horror show.

Dad’s head finds terror in the grieving process.

James Harper Jones in Daddy’s Head.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Rob Baker Ashton

The scary events in Dad’s head Start slow and inconsistent, with flashing lights reminiscent of police cars shooting through Laura and Isaac’s windows and unexplained fires breaking out in the forest that surrounds them. Here the film follows a pattern: daytime scenes that heighten the tension between Laura and Isaac, then creepy nighttime scenes in which a wine-drunk Laura experiences these strange events. Between this pattern and a series of routine jump scares, Dad’s head falls into a boring routine for a while.

Luckily, things pick up with the arrival of the titular monster, a scurrying, smiling replica of James’ head. (Or could it even be the real thing?) It lurks in vents, calling Isaac from the forest in a hoarse voice that, yes, is reminiscent of the Babadook. Of course, Laura believes the creature is a figment of Isaac’s imagination. particularly Given all the grotesque monsters he has running around his room. Even its shape – and the title of the film itself – suggests a silly, childish monster.

However, as evidence of the creature’s existence quickly becomes irrefutable, how Laura and Isaac deal with it will determine their future relationship. Will they give in to the monster? Will they continue to deny its existence? Or will they band together and find common ground in this shared, traumatic experience? In this way, the monster becomes a representative of grief and the emotional limits to which it pushes us. Both Brown and Turnbull do moving work as two people with very different paths through grief. Brown is full of insecurity and numbness, while Turnbull amplifies Isaac’s pain with vulnerable anger.

Barfoot also scares areas other than grief, especially when it comes to atmosphere. James designed the house in which Laura and Isaac now suffer, effectively keeping his family in the prison of his presence. A disturbing wooden structure that Isaac discovers in the forest provides a folk-horror-tinged counterpoint to the main house and an ideal hiding place for the monster that lurks within. The slightest flicker of James’ smile in the dark depths of the building is enough to make you recoil in your chair. Equally frightening is the fact that rather than being frightened by this sight, Isaac appears to be comforted, his perception of the world distorted by the loss. Yes, he may be haunted by a disembodied head, but grief and its effects are the real monsters here.

Dad’s head was reviewed from its world premiere at Fantastic Fest. It premieres October 11th on Shudder.