Baghead is a 2008 Horror/Comedy Film written and directed by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass and starring Ross Partridge, Elise Muller, Greta Gerwig, Steve Zissis, and Jett Garner. The premise of the film is that Chad (Zissis), Matt (Partridge), Michelle (Gerwig), and Catherine (Muller) attend a local film festival honoring Jett Garner and his latest film, "We're All Naked", and afterwards, talk in a bar about how they've never been in a major film, and probably never will. Matt comes up with a brilliant idea, that they all go up to the cabin owned by Chad's uncle and write a screenplay starring them so that they'll have a vehicle to get movie credits.
At the cabin, it quickly becomes apparently that Chad is besotted with Michelle, while she sees him as just a friend. Meanwhile, Michelle is trying to make the moves on Matt, who vowed to Chad that he would not sleep with her and Catherine is not currently dating Matt, but has been off and on with him for the last eleven years. After Michelle begs off on the first night of script brainstorming, she has a nightmare involving being threatened by a man with a paper bag for a mask and the group decides to make that the premise of their movie. The next morning, Christine turns up missing, and shortly thereafter, so does Chad. While they're gone, Michelle and Matt succumb and have a make-out session before Matt begs off to go upstairs and relieve his tension with a bottle of shampoo. That's when he's set upon by a mysterious figure with a bag on his head...
The film is intended to be a parody of low-budget indie films, complete with shaky camera work, awkward zooms that are out-of-focus, and odd cuts.
No connection to the 2023 horror film of the same name.
This film exhibits the following tropes:
- Brown Bag Mask: The eponymous Bagman wears a bag over his head with eyeholes, first a paper bag, then a burlap one.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Shortly after Matt heads upstairs, he's jumped by Chad and Catherine in bag masks. Only afterwards do they realize what the bottle of shampoo on the bed means.
- Closed Circle: The four are in a cabin eleven miles from the highway, with no cell reception. Then the Bagman cuts the landline and disables their car...
- Deadly Prank: After Chad is hit by a car, Matt reveals that he's not dead, and that the Bagman is his friend, Jett. Fortunately, Chad survives the experience with nothing more than bruising and a broken leg.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: A frustrated Matt heads up to his bed with a bottle of shampoo after making out with Michelle but stopping just shy of sleeping with her.
- Stylistic Suck: The film is made in the style of low-budget indie films, from all of the action in a scene happening from a single camera angle to clumsy zooms and pans and bad focusing.
