| Daddy's Head | |
| Director: | Benjamin Barfoot |
| Cinematography: | Miles Ridgway |
| Distributor: | |
| Runtime: | 97 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom[2] |
| Language: | English |
Daddy's Head is a 2024 folk horror[3] film directed by Benjamin Barfoot. It premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2024, and was released on Shudder on October 11.[4]
After the funeral of his father, James (Charles Aitken), who was the victim of a car accident, Isaac (Rupert Turnbull) and his stepmother Laura (Julia Brown) are haunted by a strange creature that starts to walk around the house.[4]
Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave the film 3/4 stars, noting its similarities to The Babadook and Under the Skin. He wrote, "it all works primarily because of Barfoot's oversight of the film's sharp technical elements, including fantastic production design, cinematography, and editing."[7] The Guardian Phil Hoad gave it 3/5 stars, writing, "A monster, or the supernatural, as a manifestation of uncontainable emotions is hardly a new idea, especially as so-called elevated horror has leaned into the concept... Daddy's Head adopts this increasingly familiar tactic, and just about succeeds in freshening it up with a superlative creature and great production design."[8] Alison Foreman of IndieWire gave it a B grade, saying it "isn’t likely to stick around as a film that genre fans will revisit often, but as far as haunting and half-baked ghost stories, Shudder subscribers could do worse than this sort-of-good-sort-of-bad pain in the neck."[9]
Spencer Perry of ComicBook.com gave the film 2.5/5 stars. He wrote, "As far as derivatives of Jennifer Kent's The Babadook go, there have been worse, but this one doesn't do enough to stand apart from the other films that have tried to ape that movie's success, either."[10]