Shudder Saturday: Daddy's Head (2024)

Daddy’s Head is far from the first film to use the trappings of horror to explore grief. It’s also far from the first film to explore growing tension between a parent and child. I have to say though, considering the plot description, that I didn’t expect to be thinking of one specific film so often throughout my time viewing this. That film was The Babadook. And this is much better than that.

Young Isaac (Rupert Turnbull) is left in the care of his struggling step-mother, Laura (Julia Brown), after the sudden death of his father. It may only be a temporary situation, because Laura may barely be able to care for herself at this time, let alone a child, but maybe they can help one another through the dark tunnel of grief until they see light at the end. Or maybe an interloper will make things even more difficult for them, especially when it seems to be Isaac’s father, back from the dead in a twisted and malevolent form.

The second film from director Benjamin Barfoot, who also wrote the screenplay this time around after making his feature debut a few years ago with Double Date (a glorious horror comedy written by the lead, Danny Morgan), Daddy’s Head is much more interesting and thought-provoking than I expected it to be. Balancing out the good and the bad, as well as the straightforward drama and the standard horror movie moments, this is a mature and careful exploration of grief that many may pass over due to the title and basic plot description. The two main characters don’t necessarily mean to make things any more difficult for one another, they just aren’t able to make things any easier as they become more and more pre-occupied with managing their own pain.

Turnbull and Brown are equally excellent in roles that require them to show themselves in a very poor light. The script helps them to be problematic without making them unbearable, thanks to the strong current of grief running through the film and the well-balanced performances. There are a few good supporting cast members helping to remind viewers of the potential for outsiders to observe and judge our leads, but the others who deserve a mention are Nathaniel Martello-White, complicating things as a slightly-too-close friend of Laura, and Charles Aitken as “daddy”.

On the one hand, I’m not sure who to recommend this to. On the other hand, I would love everyone to watch this. It will be a divisive experience, especially with the way in which things play out in the very last scenes, but patient viewers should find themselves rewarded with a film that uses some pulp fiction to shine a light on a dark and vital aspect of the human experience.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Strays (2023)

As much as I love the internet at times, and have been positive about it here a few times recently, it also manages to occasionally depress me. Take The Strays, for example. It's a film that leads to an interesting, thought-provoking, ending. It's not ambiguous though. So it is disheartening to see a number of articles all appearing with headlines that claim to be helpful in explaining the ending. If you need the ending of The Strays explained then you aren't old enough to have watched the movie. I'm not being rude. The ending of the film is THAT unambiguous. 

Let's begin at the beginning though. Ashley Madekwe plays a black woman we see leaving a bad situation. She has placed a note on the fridge door, an excuse buying her some time, and she's gone. Years later, Neve (the named that Madekwe's character is now using) seems to have a perfect life. She has a loving husband, Ian (Justin Salinger), a teenage son and daughter (played by Samuel Small and Maria Almeida, respectively), and a prime position of authority and respect in her community. It seems to come at a price, however, as Neve works hard to cover up aspects of her appearance that highlight her race, and she becomes more and more unnerved by people who seem to be very interested in observing her well-maintained "perfect" life.

The feature debut of writer-director Nathaniel Martello-White, The Strays is a fascinating and brilliant look at race, class, and unconscious bias. It's such a slow burn that viewers may not realise just how affecting it is until the very last scenes, but it's meticulously put together in a way that maximises the impact of that finale. There are a couple of obvious big movie touchstones, by directors as diverse as Douglas Sirk and Michael Haneke, but it does a great job of blending a couple of familiar central ideas into something that feels new and fresh. The commentary is clear throughout, but not in a way that gets in the way of the unfolding plot, which Martello-White presents in a non-chronological way to allow for some playfulness before things get darker and darker on the way to the end credits.

Madekwe is so good here that I'll definitely be looking forward to seeing her in other lead roles. I'm not familiar with anything else that she's done, as far as I'm aware, but she's quite flawless here. Salinger, Small, and Almeida are all very good, and all believably alarmed by the potential breakdown of Madekwe's character. Then there are the two characters played by Bukky Bakray and Jorden Myrie, perhaps "the strays" of the title, or perhaps the title means much more than that. Both Bakray and Myrie are effectively unnerving, and yet both get a chance to explain why they are acting the way they are acting, which makes them more interesting than the kind of mysterious strangers you could find in films with a similar third act to this one.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone looking for easy entertainment. This isn't a standard thriller or chiller. It's a heady mix that creates tension from the constant nervousness and insecurity that viewers see being controlled (sometimes) by the main character. I'd also like to temper my praise with some criticism though, because The Strays is sometimes turned into a tougher viewing experience, a bit of an endurance test in places, than it needs to be. Everything is just right, technically, but there are one or two strands that are stretched close to breaking point, with the performances doing enough to compensate for Martello-White's misplaced idea of exactly how far he can/should push things. 

Ultimately worth your time, and the ending (that ending that doesn't need explained) is good enough to underline and amplify everything that the film has said throughout the rest of runtime, The Strays is an impressively confident feature debut that marks out Martello-White as an intelligent and exciting new director to keep a very close eye on.

7/10

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