Review: Daddy's Head

 

    

    “Behind the scenes, there is something pernicious that makes a nightmare of our world.”

                                                             - Thomas Ligotti 

What strange forms can the human body take? What lurks hidden out in the darkness? These are questions that are the horror genre’s stock and trade. Horror deals in darkness and mystery. Horror relishes in the perversion of the human form and the subversion of the ideals that we cherish. And in horror cinema, the films we as horror devotes tend to love the most are the ones that evoke the darkness and mystery of existence and leave us in that darkness. 

A new film that has recently been released is Benjamin Barfoot’s wonderfully mysterious Daddy’s Head. A film that follows in the best tradition of horror cinema, a film that deals in nightmare. Daddy’s Head is also a film about mourning, of not accepting the darkness of life. Of wanting things to be different, and of the things that exploit the weakness and hurts of others. It centers on a boy who lost both his parents, previously his mother and having just lost his father. He lives in his father’s house with his father’s girlfriend, she got left his house and estate in the father's will. The girlfriend is trying to figure out what to do about his son, who never really grew a connection with each other, and now finds herself as the closest person to him. Both are deep in bereavement, their lives shattered with the trauma of death. 

And then… something… enters the boy's life, trying to lure him into its strange designs. A thing starts lurking, whispering to the boy in the dark. It crawls and slithers, wearing his father's face. I find a strange connection to the works of the master horror author Thomas Ligotti. The buzzing sound of the creature's voice is almost exactly what I imagine Dr. Thoss’s voice sounds to me when I read the Ligotti story, The Troubles of Dr. Thoss. This film certainly has what I would call a Ligottian vibe, a creeping menace, born out of our inner traumas and all too eager to participate in our breakdown. The paranoia of being trapped with some kind of alien thing, strange in form and unknown in intention, that can impersonate others reminds me of The Thing. But there is also this spidery, fairy tale aspect to the film, recalling The Babadook or Possum. And there is a genuine madness to the film that reminds one of Possession. Barfoot is obviously a devote of horror, and has studied the field deeply. But this is no homage film, no throwback film. Daddy’s Head stands on its own and is one of the most important horror films to have come out in years. 

    Daddy’s Head has one of the most what the fuck endings I have ever seen in a horror film. I had to rewind the film to watch it again to be sure what I just saw. And I was left thinking about the ending for days, coming up with new theories of what I had seen. Subtle and ambiguous, yet full of portent and meaning. Daddy’s Head leaves the viewer in darkness and mystery, whispering to us the secrets at the heart of the nightmare of existence on this dark earth.