Daddy's Head

Daddy’s Head offers enough bone-chilling imagery — often delivered via razor-sharp jump scares — to make Shudder’s latest headscratcher worth a watch and a think.

Most effectively, Barfoot and his team turn this cold, remote estate into a character—returning to it provides none of the standard warmth of a happy home. We can feel the chill in the air.

Inevitably, this will mean it draws comparisons to The Babadook, the current high-bar for grief manifestation horror, but Daddy’s Head, which premiered at Fantastic Fest, is sharply drawn, well-shot, and genuinely unsettling in its own right.

Barfoot taps into liminal terrors more effectively through the visuals, from the gracefully shot fugue states experienced by stepmother and surrogate son, to a sinewy barrelling nightmare-beast that has apparently escaped from a Chris Cunningham video.