Baghead ending explained: Does Baghead escape?

Arriving on Netflix after a brief theatrical run earlier in the year, Baghead is just the horror you need for a gloomy British summer like this.

Starring Freya Allan, fresh off her role in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, alongside Ruby Barker, Jeremy Irvine, Ned Dennehy and Peter Mullan, Baghead follows Iris (Allan) as she inherits her father’s pub only to discover she has also inherited the sinister entity that lurks underneath the building.

Said entity, the eponymous Baghead, allows people to speak with their deceased loved ones, but as with any malevolent force like this, it’s never quite as simple as you’d hope.

As the tension builds, it’s perfectly understandable if you began pacing around your living room and missed the climax of the film, but luckily we braved it out for you to explain what actually happened to Iris, Baghead and the pub…

Baghead ending explained: Does Baghead escape?

In the film’s endgame, Iris ventures into the underground cavern following the distant voice of her friend, Katie (Ruby Barker) – against the warnings of her father’s instructions never to cross the seal into Baghead’s domain.

Iris finds ‘Katie’, but almost immediately sees her actual friend's corpse, swiftly realising Baghead has lured her down. Iris quickly gets out of the cavern and decides to try and trap Baghead down there, ensuring it can’t be used again.

This plan doesn’t sit right with Neil (Jeremy Irvine) however, who doesn’t want to give up on speaking to his deceased wife, driven by his own guilt surrounding her death. So, Neil drugs Iris and heads down to the basement to negotiate with Baghead on becoming its new guardian and keeper.

Neil takes the all-important deed to the pub and signs his name on it in front of Baghead, proclaiming himself the new guardian, but his signature disappears from the spooky document almost as soon as he shows the titular character.

Baghead then takes the form of Neil’s dead wife once more, encouraging Neil to kill Iris, thus allowing him to take over the role of guardian, and letting them continue their life as a family. It’s easy to see the manipulation, but Neil follows through with it, chasing Iris up to the roof, where despite her attempts to convince Neil he’s being led on, he ultimately pushes her off the roof to her death.

By bringing Iris's body back down to Baghead, and allowing it to take her form, Neil has fallen into the trap that the creature had easily led him towards.

Instead of taking on Iris's form and signing over the deed to Neil, the creature could instead take her form and effectively become her own master, making it free to escape into the wider world and wreak whatever havoc it so chooses.

Firstly however, Baghead decides to – shock horror – brutally murder Neil to tie up the last loose end. It’s at this point that we are shown flashbacks that make it clear to the viewer Baghead has been playing the long game in seeking its escape, pulling all of the strings since the very beginning of the film, and even before then, most likely.

As Iris's father solemnly states in his goodbye/instructional video for her: "She’s always the one pulling the strings."

Now free to leave, Baghead, in the guise of Iris, burns the deed and leaves the basement, as the pub itself starts to burn to the ground as the film concludes.

Baghead is now streaming on Netlix – sign up from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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