As the title suggests, the “Bagman” is not based on a work of Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz's bestselling recount on Agnew's crimes, rather it is an original story. The original screenplay by John Hulme feels like an adaptation of a rough draft of a story written by Stephen King during an exceptionally long commute. Though this was meant to be a throwaway it is still better than this. This would feel more threatening is someone was sleeping and comes up with a nightmare that is far more interesting.

Attendant financial issues resulting from his dream of constructing an advanced tree trimmer, Patrick McKee (Sam Claflin) relocates with wife Karina (Antonia Thomas) and toddler son Jake (Carnell Vincent Rhodes) to his childhood home and takes up a position under his brother Liam (Steven Cree) at the family lumber yard. They move in and Patrick immediately begins to hear weird sounds outside the house at night and starts having nightmarish visions of Jake being captured. Things begin to escalate—mysterious flickering lights, the appearance of a haunted doll, and an unmistakable feeling of a presence lurking in the home. Yet, no definitive claim can be made. In any case, something out there is creating clanking noises (the kind one might imagine if The Iron Giant had a bad clam) and, in Patrick's mind, the entire family is hence in peril, especially his son Jake.

It appears that Patrick is not as clueless as he seemed before. While growing up, his father told him about Bagman, a malevolent figure who supposedly resides in a long-abandoned copper mine—and who paralyzes parents before abducting their children—the good ones, not the bad ones, as one would think—and forever losing them in his bag. Initially, he thought it was merely folklore—and then. he had his encounter with Bagman which he barely escaped alive. Now Bagman has returned two decades later (we witness him capturing another child in the prologue) to terrorize Patrick's family. Patrick must now confront his worst fear to save his son.

Earlier on, I did say that “Bagman” seemed like a poor man's attempt at a Stephen King movie, but that is not completely accurate or fair. This film more broadly appears to have been assembled from the most absurdly outdated plots and ideas the horror industry has ever provided. This isn’t new within horror films, but good filmmakers have at least tried to showcase those ideas in an interesting manner that makes everything seem fresh. On the contrary, Colm McCarthy, who has previously worked on “Doctor Who” and “Peaky Blinders,” alongside the dystopian sci-fi nonsense “The Girl With All The Gifts” dulls so many of these ideas so sloppily that it feels as though he is more exhausted than his exhausted protagonist. I understand that he and Hulme are remaking an old spook story, but they have come across a “Scooby-Doo” episode. Ironically, even those were better on providing satisfying conclusions than “Bagman” ever will. 

Despite “Bagman” clearly trying to market itself as a horror movie, the extremities of it being nightmare-inducing is a child who won’t stop playing the recorder and tooting on it. The sole reason that is terrifying is because the noise is unbearable to everyone unfortunate enough to give their offspring such instruments.

Other than that, it’s a total dud through and through—the movie only elicits a reaction in noticing that it got a theatrical release at all, instead of the streaming service for which, if you’re fortunate, you abandoned ages ago.