Bagman
(2024,) while ostensibly being an urban legend flick, appears to be a
thinly-veiled (so, so thinly) allegory for childhood sexual assault.
Patrick
McKee (played by Catching Fire‘s Sam Claflin) is a dreamer whose dreams quickly turn to
nightmares when he’s forced to return to his hometown after his big gamble
doesn’t pay off. Things are stressful for Pat and his wife, Karina (Antonia Thomas,) who juggle working from home and a stack of unpaid bills with a happy
but… untameable toddler.
It’s been suggested (But who listens to medical professionals, right?) that I “don’t want children to be happy
because I didn’t have a happy childhood.” 🙄
I prefer to think of it as “Listen to your fucking parents once in awhile and
maybe the child-stealing monster won’t fucking get you.”
There’s a
pretty good reason we don’t have kids. Lol.
Eventually,
as the story drags (drags) on, we learn that Patrick’s father was… hard work and that
Patrick endured a traumatic experience when he was a kid. Weirdly, his brother,
Liam (Steven Cree,) feels the same way about their father but doesn’t appear to
have a similar experience. I don’t know if that’s just lazy writing or if they
were trying to make a point and, honestly, I don’t think I care.
Did I say
Bagman drags? What I meant is that it’s slower than molasses in January.
Bagman
is an interesting, if underused, baddie, stemming from a hodgepodge of folklore
from around the world. That actually caused a bit of a problem for me because
the film makes it seem like a local legend, tied to a particular place, then
goes out of its way to point out that it’s a worldwide myth.
Pick one.
I
mentioned that Bagman is obviously an allegory for sexual assault.
An unknown man who lures your kids away with toys, then does horrible things to
them? That he’s only after the “good” ones? The way Bagman silences any adults nearby, making it impossible to save the children? Pat’s father waxing poetic on the
virtue of holding onto childhood tightly and never letting go?
And don’t
get me started on the big bad’s secret lair being a massive hole littered with trophies and full of
phallic outcroppings…
Okay, so
Bagman does a good job of getting that whole
be-a-good-boy-or-the-bad-man-will-take-you-away-forever (or, at the very least
ruin your innocence) thing. It doesn’t do a good job, though,
of being a horror movie.
Bagman is
a case of trailers being deceiving. The trailer made it seem like a
suspenseful movie with the promise of a few good jumps. It’s not.
Slow,
repetitive, and overtly moralising, Bagman is a chore to get through –
especially if the “twist” hits you in he face with over half an hour to go. If
you want a good urban legend film, go old school with Darkness Falls or Dead
Silence and skip Bagman.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3 stars)
