Barbarian (2022) Review

Throughout the weekend of Frightfest there was a quiet buzz of anticipation in the air for director Zack Creggar’s ‘Barbarian’. Very little was known about the feature, its brief synopsis and posters giving next to nothing away. With big names not new to genre cinema including Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long, it’s safe to say the audience went in with hopeful anticipation.

I don’t know what I expected, but it absolutely was not that.

Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) has booked accommodation via an air b’n’b style app for an interview she has in central Detroit. It’s clear it’s not a great part of town, but it’s only a few nights after all, so sucking it up she gathers her things and approaches the house, entering the pin on the key safe outside.

The lockbox is empty and her calls to the property manager go unanswered. It’s the middle of the night, it’s pouring, and our protagonist is about to give up hope when a light goes on inside the house.

It transpires the accommodation has been double booked and with nothing available in the area, Tess is faced the choice with sharing the property for the night with a stranger or sleeping in her car. What could be a humorous mix up sets in motion a deadly chain of events, though not necessarily as you would expect.

It’s a horror movie after all, so seasoned genre audiences are immediately distrustful of the handsome stranger (Skarsgård), despite the plausibility of the situation. Tess’s apprehension is both clear and understandable. She doesn’t accept his offer of a drink and immediately locks the bedroom door. But as the evening progresses, the two end up talking and Tess relaxes in Keith’s awkward presence as he acknowledges her very valid fears and does his best to make her comfortable.

It’s refreshing to see a film tackle the sense of vulnerability women face in such a candid way. Despite appearances, Tess and Keith both realise the uneven power dynamic at play. We know something has to go wrong at some point, but the turn is so out of left field that it literally had the audience gasping in shock, following shortly with a bewildered yet gleeful roar of laughter.

I could go on and on about Barbarian but it is so beautifully insane that I absolutely do not want to detract from the full experience of seeing it for yourself. What begins as a tense piece focused on character development quickly devolves into something that is so absolutely batshit, no amount of foreshadowing could prepare you.

Barbarian is also masterfully shot, with seemingly nonsensical cutscenes that entirely change the tone, leaving viewers on edge with no idea what to expect next. It has elements of very sombre tension building, it has comedy, it has gore. It has everything. And whilst it shouldn’t work, it’s perfectly laced together into a beautiful tapestry of madness. You hate to love the characters you shouldn’t trust and love to hate those that should be light relief.

Barbarian was for many an absolute stand out of the festival and I cannot wait to see it again.

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