phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2024

Daddy's Head



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 32m
Country: UK
Language: English
Genre Tags: Folk Horror, Horror
Plot Summary: A boy and his stepmother fear for their safety after an eerie creature resembling the boy's recently deceased father visits them.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: I thought this was going to a Grief: The Metaphor Monster movie, but it switched gears on me to something tangible and more folk horror. There's not quite enough about what the thing with daddy's head is, and the ending is a little perfunctory, but that's made up for with some good performances and nice cinematography. The house and the forest it's in both feel cold and creepy, and are simultaneously spacious and claustrophobic. The monster appears on screen just enough to be unsettling. Most of the tension comes from waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then just dangling it there.


Outside Reviews:

Brian Tallerico
3 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Echoes of Folk Horror, “The Babadook,” and even “Under the Skin” weave through Benjamin Barfoot’s chilling study of the denial that often unfolds after the sudden loss of a loved one. When someone we care about dies unexpectedly in something like a car crash, it fractures reality, an idea that horror has leaned into for years. There’s a whole subgenre, especially lately, of what could be called “Grief Horror.” Still, Barfoot avoids the traps of this classification by valuing imagery over explanation, leading to a film that might confuse some people but haunt them nonetheless.