Barbarian Movie Review
Nathan Swank
October 13th, 2022
It’s a dark and stormy night. A woman pulls up to a small home. Getting poured on, she rushes up to the deck and punches in a code to a key box. The key is not there. She is clearly irritated. She knocks on the door. Nothing. Then a light turns. A tall man hesitantly opens the door.
I’m gonna stop for a second and just say, if you like to know as little as possible about a great horror movie, then stop reading and go watch BARBARIAN. In the meantime, I’m gonna continue to entice the taste buds with the opening of this juicy piece of terror.
The man has clearly been woken up and is confused by the interruption. The woman is also confused as to why there is a man even at this home. She explains that she booked this Airbnb. The man says he booked the Airbnb as well. He kindly invites her into the home out of the rain. There is constant hesitance in every action by both people. The home is small and minimal. The man’s bags are visible. They both show their receipts as evidence that this Airbnb has been double booked and it all seems very legit. However, there is something that is not as it seems.
Alright, I’m stopping for a second and final time. I really don’t want to give anything away and I will no longer speak about plot. But I again, implore you, if you enjoy the horror genre in any sense, see BARBARIAN. I knew nothing about this film before seeing it and am super thankful for it.
Written and directed by Zach Cregger, BARBARIAN opens like all good horror films, with a bit of mystery, intrigue and an unsettling setup. But it shifts genres in just what kind of horror film it’s going to be. A dangerous line to balance, which could go wrong in many cases, but works in a wonderful, wildly entertaining way. BARBARIAN gets crazy and dives deeper in a mix of reality and absurdity that somehow achieves greatness by feeling like the story is free from form, branching in odd directions in organic yet surprising ways as if it is being written without constraints.
Georgina Campbell and Bill Skarsgard are perfectly cast as the two people who meet in the initial setup. It’s almost like a meet cute, but a slight unsettling off kilter meet cute. There is a lingering tension at all times. And as I said, the horror genre that BARBARIAN encapsulates is numerous. With a touch of humor, shock, gore, and good old fashion disturbing unseen tension presiding over everything, BARBARIAN is a must see for fans of the genre.
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