Barbarian (2022) Wonderfully twisted horror debut from Zach Cregger
“Do I look like some kind of monster?”
After finally seeing Weapons recently I simply had to track down a copy of Zach Cregger’s solo debut feature film Barbarian and if you thought Weapons was creepy as fuck, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Here are the opening 10 minutes which will spoil absolutely nothing for the 92 minutes that follow in this horribly twisted gem of a horror film:
From a jet black screen and the pitter-patter of falling rain accompanied by occasional rumbles of thunder, the camera pans up until it finds a single light outside a single house that appears in the darkness to be freshly painted, presentable, warm and homely. With the light glistening from the rain tumbling on the road there’s another clap of thunder overhead followed by a streak of lightning, then a second, and now a third as this is joined by a loud rumble of thunder amid the incessant rain. Further lights slowly appear heralding the arrival of a car driven by “Tess” (Georgina Campbell) and as the so far static camera now begins to move toward the car before dissolving inside, a cacophony of eerie, ghost-like voices follow the camera move towards the car and only stops once we’re inside the car with Jess, and sheltering from the rain.
Checking her Airbnb reservation and key access number (as well as dismissing an incoming call from Marcus), Tess sighs lightly before exiting the car, dragging her luggage from the back seat and wheeling it quickly and under the lighted porch, and dry from the continual rain. After finally entering the correct key access number on the door panel (and after dismissing a second call from Marcus), Tess is dismayed to find the key box opening, but no key. Shivering with cold and with no answer from the managing agents of the property, Tess sighs as she tries to survey the immediate neighbourhood in the pitch black dark of the night before retracing her steps through the rain and the sanctuary and warmth of her car. As she does so, a light comes on inside the property and we immediately cut to Tess repeatedly pressing the buzzer on the front door and now watching a male figure through the adjacent window turn on another lamp inside the house.
Slowly, the male figure appears behind the front door, a door he opens gingerly and cautiously to a stranger in the middle of the night. Cutting between the two, both Tess and a soon to be named “Keith” (Bill Skarsgård) confirm they have each “rented the place” but from two competing managing agents and clearly, the property, unbeknown to them, has been double booked. There’s a loud clap of thunder overhead as Keith suggests “Why don’t you come inside. We’ll call the idiots” and following an even louder rumble of thunder we cut for the first time from their friendly verbal back and forth to a wider shot of the property and as Tess somewhat reluctantly crosses the threshold into the house “BARBARIAN” is displayed in the centre of the screen in a dark pink/purple font on a black background.
Small insects can be seen scurrying through the letters of the title.
We cut to a slow 360 degree pan around the inside of the house for the first time, from Tess’ point of view if you will, and we find a spacious, modern, clean and tidy property. As Tess asks to use the bathroom and almost immediately and nervously states “I’ll be right back” there’s yet another loud and ominous clap of thunder overhead as she inches herself slowly and surely towards the bathroom. As she does so, she asks a sour faced and somewhat reluctant Keith to produce the email confirmation of his booking. Following a close-up of Tess locking the bathroom door (the first of many such shots in the coming film) she now walks fully back into frame with a vacant, neutral, and tired stare as she sighs at her reflection in the mirror, urinates, and then rifles through Keith’s wash bag on the sink. We see an electric toothbrush (for the first time) charging in the corner of the bathroom, Keith’s hotel-style mini bottles of shampoo and shower gel and now back in the main hallway of the house, no Keith.
A brilliant rolling camera backward now elicits the first jump scare of many to come as Keith appears behind a startled Tess, emerging from the shadows with a smile and his mobile phone and following a quick check of his reservation, the property appears to be genuinely double-booked. A little nervously, Keith murmurs that he doesn’t know the “protocol” for their unfortunate situation and quickly Tess prepares to leave with a friendly “I’ll let you get back to sleep” before stating she’ll make some calls to local hotels and until then, she’ll be OK in the car. Keith worries for the still stranger stood before him as he warns Tess against staying too long in her car. He intimates that the neighbourhood may be dangerous, especially so this late at night, and “Look, obviously, do whatever you want. But if you wanna hang out in here, where it’s dry, and there’s a lock on the door, I’m totally fine with that”.
We cut to Tess sizing up the interior of the house again and quickly, scanning her phone for available hotels as Keith returns with the wi-fi password.
Keith: “Oh, by the way, I’m Keith”
Tess: “Tess”
Keith: “Tess. That’s a pretty name”
As Tess awkwardly thanks her stranger for his kind compliment, Keith retreats behind the breakfast bar with offers of first a cup of tea, then a glass of wine from an unopened bottle and a “housewarming thing” and with Tess occupied trying to arrange a hotel for the night, he finally settles on making his new housemate a cup of tea…
I’m a difficult fan of horror to please but my goodness what an extraordinary film this is, a feature length cinematic debut film too, and if it wasn’t for my eagerness to see Weapons as soon as I possibly could I would have struggled to have fallen over a copy of Barbarian here.
How best to sum up this gem in a short paragraph? How about:
A magnificent (truly magnificent) 40 minute short horror film flips genres for the sunshine after the rain and for a hero soon plummeting to the depths of hell (and Detroit) a lost and bewildered zero. From Reagan’s America of the 1980’s we crash land back into someone else’s nightmare in the bowels of the earth (and Detroit) as a mother nurtures her latest baby and a creature stalks the claustrophobic underground tunnels of Ben Wheatley’s 2011 psychological horror, Kill List. I saw a lot of Halloween and The Blair Witch Project too in a horror film that plays with your expectations brilliantly, shifts tones and genres amid blood and gore, shocks and scares, and by the closing credits and the playing of “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes I’d dissolved from being scared shitless to smiling, laughing like a drain, and applauding for a magnificent (truly magnificent) film.
Treat yourself sometime.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here, I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers, eh? As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024. In volume 1, you’ll find 80 spoiler-free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers. In volume 2, you’ll find 91 of the very best films, appraised with love and absent of spoilers, from 1990–2024. And in volume 3, you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino, together with the very best of the rest, and another 87 spoiler-free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All are available in hardback and paperback. Here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon
