Set over a compacted 24-hour period, the dinner party from hell in a mostly single-setting? Low-budget indie horrors often know how to make the most of a contained setting and the new IFC Midnight horror “Barbarians” sounds very much in the vein of self-contained thrillers about an evening going horribly wrong.
“Barbarians” centers on four friends who come together for a celebratory dinner party at a country house. But as the night progresses, dark secrets emerge, and unsettling events begin to unfold around them. Written and directed by Charles Dorfman, a producer on “The Lost Daughter,” “Tracks,” and “The King’s Speech,” “Barbarians” has a really eclectic cast too and stars Iwan Rheon (“Game of Thrones”), Catalina Sandino Moreno (“Maria Full of Grace”), Tom Cullen (“Weekend”), Inès Spiridonov (“Seuls”), and Will Kemp (“Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce”).
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Here’s the official synopsis:
Set over the course of twenty-four hours, BARBARIANS sees couple Adam (Rheon) and Eva (Moreno) wake up in their supposed dream house on Adam’s birthday. Lucas (Cullen), property developer and friend of the couple, arrives for dinner with his actress girlfriend Chloe (Spiridonov) to celebrate Adam’s birthday and the couple’s buying of the house. But secrets unravel over dinner, and when the doorbell rings the evening takes a nightmarish turn. As manners give way to madness, an ‘idyllic’ evening of celebration descends into a dark night of terror; and the group’s civilized dinner party turns out to be anything but.
IFC Midnight’s “Barbarians” opens in theaters and is On Demand on April 1. The first trailer looks pretty great, so check it out for yourself below.