Seeing his father's face looking back at him through the narrow confines of the air vent in his bedroom was unnerving in itself, but what made it even more terrifying for young Isaac is the foreboding fact that his dad recently died in a car accident. That's just one of many nightmarish images and question-raising scenarios witnessed by a boy and his struggling stepmother when their isolated postmodern house by the woods is stalked by something wearing an all-too-familiar face in Daddy's Head.
With the new horror film now streaming on Shudder, Daily Dead had the great pleasure of talking with Benjamin Barfoot about writing, directing, editing, and composing the music for Daddy's Head, which explores the effects of family-fueled grief and expertly walks the line between ambiguous horror and straightforward scares, leaving you wondering what exactly is real until the film's pivotal final frame.
You can watch our in-depth interview with Benjamin Barfoot below, and in case you missed it, be sure to read Matt Donato's Fantastic Fest review of Daddy's Head!
Synopsis: In the wake of his father’s untimely death, a young boy is left in the eerie solitude of a sprawling country estate with his newly widowed stepmother. Struggling to navigate the overwhelming task of parenthood, his stepmother grows distant, leaving their fragile bond at risk of collapse. Amidst the growing tension, the boy begins to hear unsettling sounds echoing through the corridors, and is soon haunted by the presence of a grotesque creature bearing a disturbingly familiar resemblance to his late father. As the boy’s warnings are dismissed as the imagination of a grieving child, the sinister entity tightens its grip on their crumbling lives.
Director: Benjamin Barfoot
Screenwriter: Benjamin Barfoot
Cast: Julia Brown, Rupert Turnbull, Charles Aitken, Nathaniel Martello-White
Producers: Matthew James Wilkinson, Patrick Tolan
Cinematographer: Miles Ridgway
Editor: Benjamin Barfoot
Composer: Benjamin Barfoot
Language: English
Country of Origin: UK
Running Time: 97 minutes
[Above image courtesy of Rob Baker Ashton and Shudder.]
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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