There are movies that try to bend reality and change the way we see the world, and director Oliver Bernsen (Connective Tissue) and writer Henry Bernsen (When We Get to Heaven) certainly try to hammer down that misconception and what happens if we slowly start losing that grip on reality. There is a lot to admire in the odd, 16 mm, body horror film, Bagworm, but it’s so out there and is such a road map tonally that there is a lot to be desired. There are some truly baffling decisions made in the film which fits thematically even just with its short running time feeling almost exhaustive. However, when the film is entertaining, it works; it’s just far and few between when we get that cheap out horror moment or cheap laugh at how something plays out.
Peter Falls as Carroll in BAGWORM. Photo Credit: Adriel Gonzalez. Photo courtesy of choxiee.
Bagworm focuses on Carroll (Peter Falls) and he is the opposite of an optimist. If anything, he’s a doomsayer — anything that can and will go wrong inevitably will. That is essentially his world view. He’s frustrated in every form of his life— work, love, so forth — and at how the modern world is just sort of a mess. Everything is just meandering and his life is just moving, going along like a cog in the machine until, one day, he unfortunately steps on a rusty nail. This isn’t a one-inch nail, this is a nasty humungous nail, and it is rather shocking that it doesn’t penetrate through to the top of his foot. He removes said nail, dumps his foot in an ice bath, and wraps it. Understandable, but not totally the best or safest idea. He doesn’t ever seek out medical attention, just sort of just hoping it heals on its own. And this is where more of his issues start to arise.
R: Peter Falls as Carroll in BAGWORM. Photo Credit: Adriel Gonzalez. Photo courtesy of choxiee.
While his mind has always been sort of dark and twisted, the looming and ever so graphically growing infection he has from not taking care of his puncture wound is sending him over the edge. Is everything he is trying to accomplish going to lead to his self-destruction and the downfall of humanity itself in one way or another, or is he just having fever dreams and potentially irreparable damage by presumptive tetanus from the rusty nail?
What works here is that Peter Falls (Your Monster; The Angry Birds Movie 2) is sort of a comedic genius when he gets to lean into the comedy and absurdity. Everything he says and does is so off-kilter and sort of funny in a “I feel bad for this guy” kind of way, and it works. His reality is so diluted by the fiction that you never truly get a grip of whether he really is just dying or if the world really is that bleak, and it works. It just needs to come more full circle, balance everything out better, and create something more memorable for the audience to hold onto. This doesn’t provoke any thought after it ends. It’s a good time, granted, but there is something inherently missing from thinking afterwards about what was consumed. We could very easily chalk it up to the fact that the world is such a deeply disturbed and dark worst possible timeline currently, and maybe that’s it — maybe everything is already so dark and diluted that a movie that presents itself in a similar mindset fails to give that escapism that the industry lives on.
Peter Falls as Carroll in BAGWORM. Photo Credit: Adriel Gonzalez. Photo courtesy of SXSW/choxiee.
Oliver Bernsen and Henry Bernsen want to create something for the audiences to sink their teeth into and feel wildly unsettled by, and Peter Falls helps bring that to life. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be a message deeper than the world sucks and we’re all terrible people, which isn’t exactly something that sits right with a viewing audience. It has moments where there are genuine moments of brevity, but far and few between, and watching Carroll sort of just faulter and struggle becomes more of a daunting task than an enjoyable one for Bagworm.
Screening during SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026.
For more information, head either to the official Bagworm SXSW Film & TV Festival webpage or film website.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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