By JILLIAN KRISTINA
Sometimes, opportunity knocks. We may find ourselves circling the drains of our lives, not knowing which way is up, maybe never having known a reprieve from the constant struggle. The never-ending grind to grasp at something that seems so out of our reach, that when finally get close, it dissipates, like a ghost in the fog. We’re forging forward the only way we know how, whether or not it’s the right way, but nonetheless, we keep going. Even if it doesn’t feel quite right, because desperation can be funny that way, can’t it? Because sometimes, the lure of a warm bed and a roof over our heads can cause us to override certain glaring red flags that we normally wouldn’t…
“Sometimes the wrong path leads us to the right place.”
In Alberto Corredor’s 2023’s supernatural revenge horror, BAGHEAD, we are immediately thrust into the fiery chaos of one man’s curse. Owen Lark (Peter Mullen) is the current owner of the Queen’s Head Pub, a 400 year old establishment that has changed hands over the centuries, no one purveyor ever able to get a solid financial foothold. So ownership – or guardianship – continues to change, and the body count continues to rise.
“If you’re watching this, then I failed. I’m leaving you this tape so you don’t make the same mistakes I’ve made. Not that it matters. You’re already dead.”
Enter Iris Lark (Freya Allen). We first meet Iris as she’s breaking into an apartment she’s just been evicted from. Helping her retrieve her belongings is friend Katie (Ruby Barker). No sooner is Katie offering Iris an indefinite place to stay does Iris’s phone ring. Her tone immediately changes and she assures whoever is on the other end of the line that she’ll be there.
“Who was it?”
“Um, my Dad.”
“You said your Dad was dead.”
“Yup, well, he is now.”
Secrets, burdens. We all carry them, some of us more than others. And some of us have been carrying them a long, long time, too long for the tender ages at which we picked them up. Because usually, we don’t have a choice as children, do we? There’s so little we have control over, so little power over what enters or exits our lives, like a home. Support. Stability. Iris knows this, as does Katie – they met in a group home, both doing their damndest to make their way through this world, but at least they’re doing it together. At least they’ve got each other.
“You still don’t understand. We are both prisoners.”
As the only next of kin, Iris boards a flight to identify the body of her estranged father. On her way out, she’s approached by a solicitor (Ned Dennehy) – a man who somehow knows who she is and is going on and on about handling the property for her. As of now, Iris knows nothing about the pub, but this solicitor seems very interested in taking it off her hands and finding a new owner to take over the legacy of this aging, decrepit building. But the prospect of owning an actual business – of having a solid place to sleep that she owns – is much too appealing to Iris to simply turn over to someone else. No, this is a golden opportunity. A new lease on life.
“Well, I suppose these things have a tendency of unfolding as they do for a reason.”
A new lease on life through a portal to the past. After Iris has made her decision, the solicitor slides an aged piece of parchment bearing numerous signatures across his desk while handing her a strangle marked fountain pen. “It’s an old building, with ancient traditions,” he says, staring intently as she adds her signature to the collection. He rubs his hands, revealing a gold pinky ring featuring similar markings to those on the pen. He then produces a VHS tape which he gives to her, per the instructions of her father, for the new owner.
“I do hope you find yourself up to the task.”
Now joined by Katie, Iris tells her that she’s already signed the title deed to the pub, much to Katie’s disapproval. What Katie senses, Iris ignores, and when she tells her friend that a man came to the pub the night before, offering her $2000 to see the woman in the basement, Katie can’t believe what she’s hearing. Iris chalks it up to her father running a scam, charging people $2000 to go down to the basement for a scare. Besides, this new source of revenue, no matter how nonsensical or concerning, could be their ticket to better lives – law school for Katie, an art studio for Iris. The two girls could finally get on their feet the way they always talked about when they lived in the group home. This could be the way, even if just for a few days.
“It seemed like a blessing once. Having access to her gifts.”
The man, Neil (Jeremy Irvine), returns the next night, money in hand. The three walk down the dimly lit hall to the basement, walls covered in old photographs spanning years…decades. The door to the basement is made from a different wood than the rest of the pub – an older, rougher wood, adorned in the same strange marks seen on both the fountain pen and the solicitor’s ring. Iris unlocks the door as they peer into darkness, a lantern resting, waiting to be lit. Waiting to lead the way, once again, to the woman in the basement.
“Her spells float up from the basement like ghosts.”
Nothing can prepare them for what they find – a chair in the middle of the room, old statues, decaying walls…including the brick wall just beyond the chair. A jagged hole punctuates the center of the wall, like an entrance to hell itself, big enough for a person to enter…and exit. This is where the woman lives, Neil tells the girls. And in a moment, they will all experience their first encounter with the tenant whom Iris’s father had been trying to warn her about in the video tape. The tape she hasn’t yet watched, containing the rules she doesn’t yet know.
“No chains or straps will hold her down. The longer you talk to her, the stronger she becomes.”
This monstrous being, this creature, possesses the gifts of necromancy – the ability to summon the dead. Draped in filthy, tattered rags, she (Anne Muller) staggers towards them, a burlap bag enshrouding her head. She makes her way to the chair and extends a gnarled hand upon which the petitioner lays a memento from their beloved deceased; a ring, a necklace, a watch, a phone. She lifts the bottom of the bag to reveal her eroded, putrid mouth and eats the object. Before their very eyes, she transforms into the desired loved one. But only for two minutes, or else the power shifts, and she takes her agency back…with an edge.
“She’ll crawl inside your head. Even if you try to leave, sickness and death will follow you.”
But when the dead come back, they’re confused. They don’t know that they’re dead. It’s completely disorientating, emotional, and all in a span of two minutes. The past and all its secrets, all its wounds, all the words left unsaid, all the trauma unfolding…and then, after two minutes – because two minutes is never really enough – the real horror begins. The eyes go black and the tone shifts, signaling that those lost loves are now truly gone, and Baghead is back in charge. Baghead, with her legion of pain, and torment, and imprisonment all festering and raging and becoming what 400 years of abuse and violation and extortion will inevitably create.
“Have you ever stopped to think that maybe, she’s not your curse. That maybe, just maybe, you’re hers?”
By the time Iris and Katie watch the tape, it’s too late. By the time they allow Neil to use Baghead, it’s too late. In fact, it was already too late before Iris ever stepped foot in The Queen’s Head. It was as if the dominoes had already begun to fall, invisible nudges by an unseen, imprisoned hand, wanting nothing more than the life she once had. The life that was ripped from her. Freedom, centuries in the making.
“Your fate was sealed 400 years ago when an ancient brotherhood discovered a woman who could conjure the dead. The brotherhood tried to abuse her power, but when she refused, they branded her a witch and burned her at the stake. But death could not hold her, rising from the dead, her vengeance was ruthless.”
Secrets, buried atrocities, the underworld – these themes reign supreme in the sign of Scorpio, where the Full Moon takes place on April 23rd. This lunation steers our internal fires of release towards the ways in which we sacrifice ourselves in the name of possession. What drives our passions? What fuels our sense of worth? What offerings do we need to make to our internal hearths to heal those open wounds that still lie festering at our core? How can we alchemize all that has been visited upon us with every shred of will and resilience those slashes have forged? Because remember – we are not what has happened to us, but what we do with it. This is our opportunity to face what’s hidden and give it a voice. To confront the past and vow to never allow it to disempower us again. To acknowledge the atrocities of those who came before us and commit, now and forever, to do better. Because if we don’t, we’re meat for the beast. If we don’t, we just might lose ourselves to the void, becoming a vessel for the vitriol that only the most vile of circumstances and elements and tyrants can conjure.
“There’s some wisdom that only suffering can bring.”
Yes, wisdom after we’ve all (hopefully) survived this installment of the eclipse portal in Aries and Libra – another portal of which we’ll revisit in October. For now, we can breathe a collective sigh (ugly cry) of relief as Mercury prepares to station direct on the 25th, just two days after the moon reaches her fullness. April has been a gauntlet of emotional and physical breakdowns and throughs. The highs and lows have had us question who the hell we are, what the hell we’re doing here, and now, how we can go forward in a completely different way. Aries season has not been gentle, but then again, it never is. It’s the start of the new astrological year, the time where the raw and real resolutions begin to be realized. Begin to seed. And now that we’re seeing our way out of not only Mercury Retrograde, we’re entering into the realm of the bull and all its earthly delights…and possible horrors (just kidding – every month is a special brand of horror nowadays). As of today, we are officially in Taurus season, and truly, the shift in energy will be palpable. Like the sense of liberation felt when acquiring an entirely new body, a new purpose – a new life – walking freely and unencumbered from the raging inferno left behind in the wake of our becoming. Flames, rising and falling. Ashes, descending and disappearing, creating a clean slate from which we can reimagine ourselves.
The potential for an earth-shattering rebirth is now, and here is a tarot spread that might aid you in making the most out of the energies at hand. See you in two weeks!
- Who was I before the eclipse portal that started on March 25th?
- Who am I on the other side of it?
- What burdens/legacies/masks have I shed?
- What did I discover within myself as I laid these fallacies on the pyre of my own becoming?
- What can I embody as I take my first steps into this next chapter – nay – book of my life?
- A token/talisman/touchstone of power to ground me in the new.
