Bagman- A Spooky Season Review
Sam Claflin has had a weird career. It seemed like he would be positioned as one of the next big things, after landing a kush role in Catching Fire, which led to the sleeper romance hit Me Before you, but ever since he’s been on a Sam Worthington train to nowhere, with his latest film I’m not even sure getting a theatrical release from lionsgate. And I didn’t even hate this movie. They just had no faith in it.
bagman means you have to accept this lore that somewhere out there is a boogeyman type person who kidnaps kids and throws them in a bag he carries never to be seen again. the film opens with the suggestion of this, then we move on to Claflin and his family, who seem plagued by the same thing. Honestly, they could take this kid. I’ve never been so annoyed by a choice in a film, but this little boy has been given some kind of recorder or whistle or something, and he’s blowing it all the damn time. I was shocked at how log his parents are able to keep their sanity, while he’s incapable of doing anything but annoying the fuck out of the audience with this high pitched whistle.
But, take that element away, and the movie is basically just like all those PG-13 horror movies we got in the 2000’s. We’ve since elevated horror to A24 and Neon, or reduced it to whatever you want to call terrifyer, with a mix of Shudder titles, so this just feels out of place. It feels like a film that should have come out 20 years ago, but is just now getting release.
So, if I saw this in 2005 or 2006 it would feel like just another Boogeyman, White noise, hide and Seek, or whatever. There’s almost a boosted nostalgia effect, which would happen if someone tried remaking a Korean horror title today. Remember when that was a thing too?
It won’t blow your mind, but I didn’t think it wasted my time. It has some effective moments, and Claflin is pretty good as the lead. The audio description track was good, but I could ahve used a bit more description of the Bagman in terms of size. I was confused as to how big he was. He feels larger than your average adult male, but I also don’t know if that just means he’d be great in the NBA, or he’s so big he is classified almost as something else. Size relativity helps here.
No rush, but if you’re bored and feel disappointed by horror, I’ve seen about 20 horror titles that are worse than this in 2024.
Final Grade: B-
