Baghead (2008/Sony DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: C

 

 

So here we have yet another spoof of Horror Films and Filmmaking from the supposedly up and coming Duplass Brothers Jay & Mark.  Baghead (2008) starts with a black and white short in the beginning that the four main characters are seeing in a theater, which leads us into their would-be indie film world.  Just as they start to contemplate writing a script about a serial killer that wears a paper bag on his head, one is out to kill them and it is not The Unknown Comic from The Gong Show.

 

To their credit, this is not the whole feature, but occurs later in its 81 minutes.  The actors are somewhat compelling and have some chemistry, but even with fun and restraint, plus some better attempts (usually not working) of comedy, Baghead still manages to miss the mark more often than not by getting caught up in the same giddy self-congratulatory mumblecore pseudo-euphoria that ahs hampered indie productions to the point where the major studios cut their indie units and the whole indie side of the business is suffering in a glut of package deals and overproduction.

 

Horror fans should know this is still better than most of the so-called Horror comedies of late, so they’ll want to put it on their list.  For the rest of us, this is a curio at best.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image was shot on High Definition video and is stylized to look like 16mm film, but has weak Video Black that gives it away, is soft, detail-challenged and you would think if they were shooting HD, this could have been longer and more ambitious.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, but this is joke and dialogue based, so the surrounds only kick in for some interesting sound effects and the amusing music score, including some interesting song choices.  Extras include feature length audio commentary by The Duplass Brothers with optional subtitles (yea, don’t subtitle the actual film!), questions they already answered section, brief Baghead Scares with behind the scenes joking around and trailers for this and other Sony releases.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo