Bret Easton Ellis is a writer who knows a thing or two about horrific events in stories. The man behind the novel “American Psycho” is no stranger to putting incredible amounts of terror and blood in his stories. So, you’d imagine this is a person who has a soft spot in his heart for horror films. And that’s exactly the case. However, he also has very particular ideas about what makes a horror film really work. Unfortunately, the recent hit, “Barbarian,” doesn’t necessarily fall under his umbrella of great horror.
Speaking to Variety, Bret Easton Ellis broke down his thoughts about the horror genre and how that relates to one of the breakout scary movies of 2022, “Barbarian.” In Ellis’ mind, the best horror films are the ones that don’t bother with a ton of exposition or answers about the backstories of the villains. He says the heyday for this is the ‘70s with films like “The Exorcist,” “Jaws,” and “Carrie.”
READ MORE: ‘Barbarian’ Review: This Dark, Nasty Suburban Nightmare Will Nourish Horror Lovers
“You could go on and on with the mystery of these movies, and what made them so much more frightening was that they weren’t explained,” Ellis said. “I often find now when a horror movie goes way too far into backstory, in terms of explaining why these people do what they do, or why this monster does what it does, it really minimizes the horror.”
He continued, “I think ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ is a great example. We just do not know what that family is. We get hints of what’s happened to them, but we do not get an explanation at all as to what created Leatherface. For some reason, I find that particularly scary in ways that aren’t present in other movies in the ‘Chainsaw’ franchise. The sequels explicitly detailed why things happened, and the backstories are usually just completely bonkers.”
So, what does this have to do with “Barbarian?” Well, Ellis said he did “like the movie,” but he had problems with its ending.
**Spoilers for “Barbarian” to follow…**
“I thought it had a great, slow buildup that had that epic shock in the middle of it, and then it becomes this totally different movie,” he explained. “We’re very intrigued on how these two movies are going to merge and inform us as to why this thing has happened. I had a friend who liked it too, but also thought that in its third act it over-explains. It wasn’t scary for him anymore, and there was something about that thing, The Mother. It was more terrifying to just think that this thing is living there and goes out hunting at night.”
“Barbarian,” for those who haven’t seen it, starts with a story that follows a young woman (Georgina Campbell) who finds herself in an awkward Airbnb situation. The film abruptly transitions in the second act to follow Justin Long’s character, a famous actor who finds himself caught up in a sexual misconduct scandal and retreats to Detroit to take care of his affairs. The paths of both the young woman and actor cross when they become imprisoned by a monster called The Mother.
Ellis believes the ending for “Barbarian” should have gone even further in the dark worldview by allowing Justin Long’s character to survive instead of the heroic young woman.
“This friend, a filmmaker, told me that was when the movie also went off the rails for him, as it didn’t really have the courage of its convictions, meaning that the Justin Long character had to be punished somehow and that the girl had to live,” Ellis said. “I was hoping for a slightly more pessimistic ending, because it seemed that ‘Barbarian’ was heading in that way. It seemed like a kind of throwback to ‘70s horror, and I loved the outlandishness of the monster. It was not afraid to look completely silly or dumb, and that was scary and I liked that it wasn’t CGI. It was a very scary, real, tactile, analog thing.”
While there are plenty of people who might agree with Ellis’ view of “Barbarian,” there’s no denying the film really struck a chord with movie-goers. The film was released without much fanfare and become a box office hit, earning more than $40 million domestically off of an incredibly small budget. Since then, the film has recently debuted on HBO Max, where it found even more fans.
And apparently, it’ll be one of those films that are debated for years to come, which is never a bad thing.