Movies: Barbarian
Hi folks! I'm going to provide a shorter, spoiler-free review of Barbarian first, and then we'll go into full spoilers below.
Spoiler-free review:
Once in a while, a horror movie just fires on all cylinders. Written and directed by Zach Clegg, Barbarian is such a horror movie. From the blood-red poster, which gives vintage giallo vibes, to the terrifying trailer, to the film itself: a masterpiece of misdirection and subverted expectations with a premise that is truly horrifying on multiple levels.
Just go see this movie. Go in knowing as little as possible, and strap in for the ride of your life.
The parts of the film I can safely go into are the same parts the trailer focuses on. A young woman, Tess (Georgina Campbell), shows up at an AirBnb in a rough neighborhood of Detroit, only to find that someone else is already using it. That someone is Keith (Bill Skarsgard). It seems that the property was double-booked through no fault of Keith's or Tess's. Keith, a bit reluctantly, invites Tess to stay. He even washes the bedsheets that he already slept on and gives her the bedroom while he takes the couch.
Tess is cautious and wary (she takes a picture of Keith's driver's license and diligently locks the bedroom and bathroom doors behind her), but when she realizes that all the hotels are booked up due to a big conference, she agrees to stay.
If you saw the trailer, you know that there's something in the basement. But Barbarian holds its cards close to its chest for a while, allowing unsettling noises and the general air of suspicion Tess has about the whole AirBnb situation slowly build tension before letting all hell break loose. The scene where Tess finally goes into the basement is almost nauseatingly tense. While certain horror movie tropes (demon possession, vampires, etc) don't scare me, fucking pitch-black, claustrophobic-ass basements sure as hell do! I was going "No...NO! NO WAY WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??" the whole time.
And that's where I gotta end my review! Either go see the movie or read the spoiler review to find out what lurks in that basement. Just know that Barbarian is a wild fucking ride.
Grade: A
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SPOILERS BELOW!
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So one thing both the trailer and the beginning of the film do is misdirect the audience into thinking that Keith has something to do with whatever is in the basement. Bill Skarsgard just looks creepy. However, other than hearing a few weird noises, Tess's first night in the AirBnb is relatively normal. In fact, she and Keith have a great conversation over some wine (that he waits until she is present to open, as to not freak her out...this guy knows his shit) and even begin to flirt a little.
It's not until the next day, when Keith is off doing whatever he is in town for, that Tess goes into the basement in search of extra toilet paper and discovers a hidden door that leads to a creepy, dark hallway and a room with: 1) a camera on a tripod, 2) a bed with a stained mattress, and 3) a bucket. Oh, and a bloody handprint on the wall. Now, I'm no fancy big-city lawyer, but if I saw that I'd assume something unsavory happened in that basement. Thoroughly freaked out, Tess tries to go back upstairs, but the door to the basement has shut behind her and locked her in.
Luckily, Keith arrives back to the AirBnb soon and is able to get Tess out. When she tells him what she saw and that they have to leave immediately, he insists on seeing it for himself. Tess begs him not to, but agrees to stay upstairs while he checks it out. Well, he stops responding to her voice and Tess goes after him. Even though it's clear that Tess has a little crush on Keith, I thought "ain't no dick in the world worth going into that basement for."
This time, when Tess goes into the basement, she discovers another set of stairs beyond the room with the bed that leads to a series of tunnels. Tess sobs and cries for Keith, who finally bursts into the frame, looking like a ghost and yelling about someone else being down there, someone who bit him. This "someone" shows up and beats Keith's head against the wall into a pulp. RIP Keith! We only get a glimpse of this monster before the scene ends, but it appears to be a very tall, naked woman with straggly hair, pale skin, and missing teeth.
CUT TO...something entirely unrelated! AJ Gilbride (Justin Long) is cruising along the California highway in a red convertible when he receives a call. AJ is an actor who just started working on a new sitcom. The lead actress accuses him of raping her and refuses to work on the show unless he drops out. We know that AJ is actually a Nice Guy when he refers to the woman he assaulted as a "fucking bitch".
So, out of work, AJ looks to sell some of his properties to pay his legal bills. That includes...the very house in Detroit with the terrifying basement! So, AJ heads back to Detroit to prepare to sell the house. He is surprised to see that there are multiple suitcases still in the house and calls his property manager to see if anyone is staying there. She says that no one has been there since the last people left a couple weeks ago.
AJ is further confused when he sees a chair propping open the basement door and when he goes down to take a look, he also discovers the hidden door (he apparently bought the house and never knew there was a secret basement down there). But he is delighted to discover the secret basement because he realizes he can tell prospective buyers about the additional space. He whips out his measuring tape and gets to calculating square footage. These scenes with AJ are hilarious and whiplash-inducing. From here on out, Barbarian is more of a horror-comedy, although, trust, there is still PLENTY of horror.
AJ ends up also being chased by something and falls into a pit, where he finds Tess, who frantically tells him to stop screaming because "if you get upset, *she* gets upset". And then a gnarly hands enters the pit holding a baby bottle, which Tess drinks from. "Don't you see?" she says "She just wants you to be her baby." When AJ refuses the bottle, the woman grabs him out of the pit and forcibly tries to get him to breast feed. I guess AJ doesn't like it when *he's* the victim of assault, huh?!
At some point, there is a flashback to the 1980s. A man leaves the house (the original owner, we assume) and drives to the store for supplies: plastic sheets, diapers, and other baby stuff. He tells the shop clerk it will be a "home birth". And then he puts on a uniform and stops by a woman's house, telling her he's there to check that the water is running since there have been some outages nearby. While alone in the woman's bathroom, he unlocks the bathroom window.
We can gather from this flashback that this man kidnapped and raped women, forcing them to give birth. We surmise that the naked woman with the baby bottle is his daughter, although clearly something is not right with her. Later, when AJ escapes, he finds this man--decrepit and wasting away in a bed with an old-fashioned TV nearby and dozens of video tapes labeled things like "red head from gas station". Thank goodness we don't see what's on these tapes, but we can infer.
AJ and Tess escape, only to be followed by the woman. They end up at the top of a water tower and realize they can't get away. Ever the selfish asshole, AJ tells the woman, who is climbing up the tower, "come and get your baby" and pushes Tess off the tower, and the woman dives after her. Assuming they are both dead, AJ climbs back down...only to realize Tess is not dead and he begins apologizing profusely. Before he can stammer out an excuse for his cowardice, the woman awakens, grabs AJ's head, and pushes his eyeballs in before giving him the old Oberyn Martell head-crunch. However, when she tries to get Tess to go back, Tess takes a gun that AJ had on him, but dropped like a butter-fingered idiot, and shoots the woman. Cut to credits.
So, couple things. First of all, man, Detroit sucks. This poor town could not get shit on harder, could it? Second of all, wow. This movie is a fucking roller coaster. The movie starts out making us think Keith is the creeper. Then, it turns out it's actually some monster in the basement. Then it's actually the *daughter* of the real monster. Plus, the whole AJ plot line comes out of nowhere but gets seamlessly woven back in. And the movie becomes a comedy (albeit a dark one).
A poster in a Facebook film group I'm in pointed out that Tess starts out mistrusting Keith, but learns to trust him only for him to die. Then, she starts out by trusting AJ and trying to save him and not just herself, only to find out that he's NOT trustworthy just in time for him to try to kill her. Also, Keith LOOKS creepy, but is actually a good guy, whereas AJ looks and acts like a "nice guy", but he's really a cowardly rapist asshole (and there is a scene I didn't mention where he admits to forcing the woman when she said "no", so we can 100% not care that he dies).
Despite the "can we trust men?" text/subtext, I don't really think Barbarian is trying to be that deep. I think it just wants to be a really scary, unpredictable movie. I don't get the sense that the director wanted to make some greater statement about gender or motherhood or poverty in Detroit. I think he just wanted to freak us all the fuck out. Mission accomplished.
Barbarian was a ton of fun and it's everything I hope for in a scary movie: good writing, good cinematography, good acting, and genuinely scary. There are some jump scares for sure, but the director knows how to build dread. Jump scares are easy. Dread is an art.
Grade: A
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