“Barbarian” is nasty. Whether you take that as a positive or a negative will be an entirely personal thing, but it’ll be a word that people on both sides of the opinion aisle will likely use to describe it. Georgina Campbell plays Tess, a young woman visiting Detroit for a job interview. She turns up at the rental home late at night only to find out that someone is already staying there, Bill Skarsgard‘s handsome and disarming Keith. Out of options and in a sketchy neighborhood, she decides to take up his offer to stay there. Does he give off creepy vibes and raise possible red flags? Absolutely. Does she also find herself somewhat attracted to him? Absolutely.
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Perhaps obviously, it’s not long before she starts digging around in the basement and realizes that Keith, the unexpected roomie, is the least of her problems. It’s at that point that “Barbarian” gets crazy and takes the audience on a grim rollercoaster ride of a FUBAR suburban fairytale that it is impossible to detail further without spoiling. “Barbarian” is one of those horror movies where the less you know about it going in, the more harrowing and rewarding it is as a viewer.
How and why Justin Long‘s character fits into things can be mentioned without it being too much of a spoiler. He plays AJ, an actor facing a Hollywood scandal that threatens to wreck his career, and he owns the rental where the horrors are unfolding. Because of his career crisis and to avoid financial ruin, he needs to sell it. He turns up at the property and discovers that the guests appear to have never left. It’s clear from the get-go that AJ is a monumental asshole of a man, and Long seems to relish the opportunity to play this monster — and monsters, in various forms, are not something “Barbarian” is short of.
“Barbarian” is a three-act film that laces multiple stories, in different locations and different time periods, together in an unsettling web of chaos whose narratives place a bitter taste in the mouth. There is a real risk with this format that a film can feel disjointed or uneven depending on the strength of the various sections. However, these smash together in a maelstrom of pure horror and a fight for survival. “Barbarian” pushes limits and commits wholeheartedly to everything it puts out there, building to a jaw-dropping third act.
Combine the narrative of the horror that unfolds in the dark beneath the rental with Zach Cregger‘s direction and cinematography by Zach Kuperstein, echoing Raimi and Argento, and Barbarian is a dark and twisted tale that might prove too much for some. Pairing the visuals with Anna Dubrich’s unsettling music and some nifty and piercing sound design ensures that this is an immersive visceral assault on the audience’s senses when it needs to count.
Kudos should also be given to Cregger, who wrote and helmed this, for a script that is never waylaid by excessive exposition, nor does it feel thin. There is a simplicity here that keeps it sharp and, at times, darkly funny. Also well-crafted is the degree of irredeemable toxicity and jarring narcissism written for Long’s AJ, which really sticks in the throat.
Again wanting to avoid spoiler territory, it would be remiss not to give credit to the work of Matthew Patrick Davis as The Mother, a character whose presence is teased in trailers but who is a hideous jewel in the film’s crown. Some will find her and what he does with her to be too much, while others might have just found their new favorite Disney Princess.
“Barbarian” is an uncomfortable film that puts its foot to the floor and does for short-term rentals what “The Blair Witch Project” did for camping. Although it occasionally gets tied up in tropes, it is elevated by its willingness to embrace those and roll them between its gnarly fingers like rancid snot before devouring them. For those horror fans who add it to their list of favorites from this year, “Barbarian” will put the sic(k) in classic, and it loves every deranged second of it. [B+]