Bagman (2024) Review: A Plodding and Unimaginative Horror Movie That Belongs in a Bag
The title Bagman refers to the “Sack Man”, a folklore of a bogeyman-like figure who carries a sack on his back that stuffed naughty children inside. Such folklore would make a creepy horror movie but Colm McCarthy, who directed TV episodes like Doctor Who, Peaky Blinders and Black Mirror, and screenwriter John Hulme fail to capitalise on its potential. What we have here instead is a sad sack of a horror movie that is more tedious than a frightening one.
In Bagman, the titular creature haunted Patrick McKee when he was just a boy. The Bagman doesn’t snatch naughty children but rather the good ones, put them inside a bag and zip it shut. But Patrick somehow survived from becoming the Bagman’s victim. Fast forward to the present day, Patrick (Sam Claflin) has grown up as a father to baby son Jake (Caréll Vincent Rhoden) and works as a carver. His wife Karina (Antonia Thomas) spends time working from home on her laptop and taking care of their kid.
We also learn that Patrick has been facing financial issues and as if it’s not troubling enough, his dark childhood past catches up with him. He’s been having nightmares and sometimes he hears strange noises while he’s at home. McCarthy injects familiar moments of things that go bump in the night from mysterious noises to light flickering and sudden darkness. There’s a creepy doll nicknamed Dolly and the Bagman is somehow using it to lure Jake. Jake simply loves to spend time blowing into the recorder that his father made for him. Although it’s cute seeing him playing with the instrument, it gets annoying after a while and I don’t blame why his mum feels the same way at one point when the repeated noise of the recorder breaks her concentration while trying to get her job done.
You see, Bagman frustrates me the most not just because of the recorder but also the way McCarthy seemingly goes around in circles, making the 90-minute-plus length a chore to sit through. I’m not sure whether the slow-burn dread is intentional but even so, the pace simply stalls on and off to the point I almost fell asleep watching this movie. The story pops up with occasional flashbacks about Patrick’s childhood and how his father used to tell him about the Bagman but it doesn’t do much to keep me intrigued. McCarthy also throws in some obligatory jump scares but none of them generates enough fright or terror and even with Tim Williams’ riveting score and Nick Remy Matthews’ atmospheric cinematography, it barely raises the pulse.
It’s a pity that Bagman wasted Sam Claflin with a dull and inept screenplay because I can see he’s trying his best to play a tormented and financially strained father facing his biggest nightmare. The same also goes for Antonia Thomas who plays Patrick’s wife and mother to Jake. The introduction of the malevolent Bagman played by Will Davis, where his full appearance is largely obscured by shadow or darkness, could have been a memorable sinister horror figure.
But McCarthy doesn’t seem to know what to do with him and his idea of keeping the Bagman’s motives vague, suggesting elements of fear of the unknown backfires because frankly, I find the antagonist is more pathetic than terrifying like he should be. McCarthy did attempt to elevate his plodding horror movie with an unexpectedly bleak ending. It was the only time that the movie felt like it was finally getting somewhere, even though it was already too late and too little. It’s hard to believe this movie is made for the theatrical release rather than a straight-to-streaming feature as it’s best to belong there.
