Interview: Baghead director Alberto Corredor hopes Shudder "built a cozy basement" for title character

Eerie horror film Baghead will begin streaming on Shudder April 5, and 1428 Elm had the opportunity to chat with director Alberto Corredor about it. Read on to find out how the feature film differs from its origins as a short, how J-Horror plays a part and why it's a perfect fit for Shudder.

1428 Elm: Alberto, tell our readers what Baghead is about.

Alberto: Baghead is a story about Iris, a young woman, discovering a family secret after the death of her estranged father. She will be pulled into a dark world of death, grief and... witches. But at its heart, it is a study of how loss affects us in different ways and how grief can destroy us if we are not able to find closure, if we cannot find the strength to move on.

1428 Elm: Before it became a feature-length film, Baghead was a short. Is the storyline the same as in the short, or did you just bring back the title character and craft a new story?

Alberto: Right from the beginning we wanted to have a female protagonist, so we knew that the storyline would be different. Baghead was our main character, as she's the driving force in the story, the metaphor of grief. We kept the mythology around her and expanded it with the mystery of the group keeping her prisoner in the basement. And we decided to incorporate some of the storyline of the short's protagonist into Neil's scenes.

1428 Elm: How did Baghead come to the attention of Shudder?

Alberto: Shudder is the premier destination for horror enthusiasts, and they see Baghead as one of the high-concept horror films they wish to incorporate into their collection. As a horror fan, this move not only makes perfect sense to me, but it also fills me with pride knowing that Baghead will find its home there! I hope they have built a cozy basement for her, though. Otherwise they will be in trouble...

1428 Elm: Non-slasher horror films rely a lot on lighting and tension, what tricks of the trade did you use to make Baghead as creepy as possible?

Alberto: We aimed to bring out feelings of despair and isolation by playing with the lighting and the look of the scenes. I'm really into Expressionism and J-Horror, which is why shadows play such a big role in our film, almost like they're a character themselves. I worked with Cale Finot, our Director of Photography, to figure out how we could use shadows and the parts of the room you can't see to make everything feel more tense. We also used negative space to build up the suspense for our audience. When it came to the basement scenes, we made everything look almost lifeless and colourless to show you are entering the world of the dead when you go down those stairs. Then, to really set the mood, we cranked up the sound design and added an awesome soundtrack by Suvi, not to mention a few jump-scares thrown in for fun!

1428 Elm: Share some intersting facts about Baghead.

Alberto: We started prep early September 2021, right at the time when COVID restrictions were lifted. Everyone in the business was rushing to production as nobody knew if lockdown would return, and we all wanted our projects done. This made finding crew, cast and locations a real struggle. We moved the production to Berlin to use the contacts The Picture Company had developed there, and to canabilize some of the production team and crew of their latest production (Retribution). Finding locations was made even more difficult by the fact that Chad Stahelski was shooting John Wick 4 in Berlin at the time, so many good locations were either not available or became too expensive for us. We scouted every basement worth its salt in the city, but couldn't find anything that was visually and logistically a fit for our story, so Marc Bitz (the Production Designer) ended up building it at Babelsberg Studios in record time. We shot in Berlin for 6 weeks mainly in two locations. Funnily enough, the last day of shooting coincided with my birthday. What a present!

 1428 Elm: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions, I can't wait until our readers get the chance to watch Baghead for themselves!