Colm McCarthy’s “Bagman” (2024) is a story of childhood anxieties. It taps into the universal childhood fear, that lingering tale that weaves its web long into the years of adulthood, growing stronger as time passes. The fear of the subhuman monstrous entity, Bagman, is all too real more so because it gains a new meaning. The supernatural legend derives its meaning from real-world anxieties. The connotation gains more power when we understand that these tralatitious stories are not just gobbledygook meant to put children to sleep.
The article contains spoilers.
Bagman (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film revolves around Patrick McKee, who works at his late father’s lumberjacking business, which his brother, Liam, now heralds. However, Patrick is inundated with loans for his ideas on the trailblazing but nonetheless debt-incurring tree trimmers that never see the light. Patrick and Liam share a close bond. Throughout the film, we see Patrick carving little animal sculptures from wood, a habit since his childhood.
How far will Patrick go to save his son from the Bagman?
Patrick is also plagued by the gnawing feeling that someone might be lurking in their backyard and waiting for the chance to snatch away his son, Jake. The anxiety stems from the folklore of the Bagman that haunted the two brothers in their childhood and Pat’s belief that he had a close encounter with the Bagman. Once Jakie gets lost in the woods behind their house but gets saved just in time by Pat’s wife, Karina. Soon Jake starts hinting at the presence of his invisible friend, Dolly.
This invisible entity, Dolly, frequently shows up at the windows of Jake’s nursery and the bathroom but disappears before Pat can see him. One night Pat realizes that someone has broken into their house. After surveying the backyard, when Pat returns and tries to get into the kitchen, he finds a strange demonic entity hanging by the ceiling of the kitchen and playing Jake’s flute. The police are called in but they find nothing substantial.
What did Pat’s father tell him about the Bagman?
In a flashback, we are brought to the scene of a copper mine right behind the wood workshop of Patrick’s father. Pat’s father tells him that the mine shaft is the lair of the Bagman. It is a ‘true’ story that has been passed from one generation to the other. The prey is almost always the bright kid, contrary to Pat’s assumption. His father chillingly explains how the demon wanders each night to search for the good kids to stuff in his stinking bag.
Pat’s psychologist who has been helping Pat sort through his anxieties surrounding the issue of the Bagman explains to him that the old folklore says that the Bagman feeds off the child’s anxieties and vulnerabilities. Barbara advises that until Pat deals with the real stuff that is bubbling up–the anxieties, the feelings of fear and vulnerability– the panic attacks will only get worse.
During a night out, Pat recounts to Karina how he believed that the Bagman had snipped off a lock of his hair. In another flashback, we see Pat’s father in young Pat’s bedroom. His father says that to ward off the malefic creature Pat needs to hold close the things he loves the most– his carving knife. A child’s love can turn a mundane object into a totem of great power. He advises young Pat never to let the things he loves slip away, for it is the surest way of summoning the devil.
Bagman (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
The Bagman strikes: A descent into darkness
Karin asks Pat if the disappearance of Jake’s flute has made him more vulnerable to Bagman’s attack. A few moments later, Anna, Karin’s sister, while babysitting for Jake gets attacked by the Bagman. Although she manages to protect Jake, she suffers from temporary paralysis on one side of her face and loss of speech.
The incident leaves Anna so traumatized that she refuses to get hospitalized for fear of being left alone. Liam and his wife take them in. That night, the Bagman strikes again. Pat notices on the bay monitor that the Bagman is paving his way to the baby cot. Pat runs to get hold of Bagman. He spots the Bagman leaving with his rotting duffel bag which is making movements, realizing that the Bagman has filled Jake inside. He follows the Bagman through their factory to the mine shaft.
The Bagman’s revenge: a haunting return to the past
As Pat reaches the lair, he finds a curtain hiding the leather duffel bag. He finds a doll when he unzips the bag hoping to see Jake alive. There is a sound box fitted inside the porcelain doll emanating Jake’s recorded cries for help. Jake realizes that it was all a ruse intended by the Bagman to lure him back to the place from where Pat got away by accident years ago.
The Bagman crawls inside the den and shows Pat the reason why he came back for him after all these years. The monster shows him the carving knife that he had broken into pieces and thrown out in a fit of rage. Pat then attacks the Bagman with the same carving knife and tries to pull himself out of the shaft. However, the Bagman is undefeatable. On Patrick’s instigation, the Bagman folds him and stuffs him inside the bag. Karina who realizes that the Bagman is after Patrick arrives with a search team but never finds any sign of him. Instead, the team finds the flute that Jake had lost.
Why does the Bagman return for Patrick after all these years?
The lair of the Bagman sports every item that can be considered as dear to children– from a stuffed bunny to toy binoculars. The Bagman can be repulsed by these items which the kids associate with the feelings of love. In a way, the feelings of love bestow prophylactic properties on these objects which help them ward off the anxieties of growing up. The grotesque and the abominable Bagman represents that uncanny dread of childhood that is just around the corner. It catches up during adulthood when childhood fancies are shown the door and life is shorn of purity or innocence.
While being inundated with a life that revolves around dreadful adult responsibilities of paying off loans and sustaining his family, Patrick releases his tension on his once treasured carving knife and unknowingly jeopardizes his own life. It necessarily portends the coming of the evil, not only the supernatural evil but as a signifier of the mental degradation that he finds himself in. Thus the Bagman returns to get Patrick just when Patrick grows disdainful of the very same thing that has saved him all this while.
