Barbarian (2022)(Minor Spoilers)

 

**This post contains MINOR spoilers**

The Story- In Detroit, Tess (Georgina Campbell) and Keith (Bill Skarsgard) share an Airbnb after an odd double-booking snafu. Tess urges Keith to leave the house after she makes a startling discovery in the basement, but Keith insists on investigating further to find more answers. 

Meanwhile, AJ (Justin Long), an actor and the owner of the house, arrives in Detroit. Tess, Keith, and AJ are all unaware of the dangers lurking beneath the house, a violent and dark decades-long history dating back to Frank’s (Richard Brake) tenure as the original home owner….

My Thoughts- Underground tunnels, cages, a video camera, and a filthy mattress soaked in blood and other bodily fluids? The madness starts, when Tess opens the secret passageway in the basement. 

The Mother’s (Matthew Patrick Davis) first appearance is a real jaw-dropper. Physically, The Mother is a grotesque abomination, a monster with super human strength. But her backstory is a heartbreaking tragedy. Forced to live underground and in darkness, The Mother just wants to be….well, she just wants to be a mom. The Mother wants a baby, and poor Tess quickly becomes one of her ideal candidates to fill that role.

I would love nothing more than to sit here and praise Barbarian as the perfect horror film, but I can’t do it. Why? Way too many stupid horror movie mistakes, and just one bad decision after another. 

Tess takes one look at a room that’s apart of the underground house of horrors, and that was enough for her. She was ready to GO. No more questions, no second guessing anything, just run far away, and never look back. Keith’s reaction to Tess’ discovery? He’s confused, and Keith questioned Tess’ story. He wants to see everything with his own eyes first before he decides to leave! Really? Tess, clearly shaken up and scared out of her mind, is begging and pleading with Keith to leave, but he wants to go down into the creepy basement in a house that he’s never been to before, a house in a rough neighborhood, because he needs more proof? Unbelievable. 

Tess endures a lot here, but it’s safe to say she also has poor survival instincts. Okay, Tess arrived at the house at night, during a rainstorm, in the cover of darkness, so she couldn’t fully see the entire neighborhood. That’s fine, BUT when sunlight hits, you can clearly see this rundown neighborhood, full of broken and abandoned homes, and you willingly drive back to the only house that’s weirdly normal and intact? Come on now. Tess had numerous chances to escape, but she could’ve avoided a lot of problems, if she just simply left and stayed away after waking up.

So let me get this straight, AJ owns the house, but he didn’t know about the secret passageway in the basement? Not buying it. I know they portrayed AJ as being a dunce, but you’re trying to tell me he never thought about throughly looking around a house that’s also an investment for him, not even once? 

Barbarian is not perfect. The movie definitely has its problems, but overall, Barbarian is still one hell of a twisted roller coaster ride. One shocking reveal isn’t enough here. Writer/director Zach Cregger successfully throws one surprising haymaker after another. You might have a good idea, where the story is possibly going, and then BAM! Barbarian takes another shocking turn, topping the previous reveals with more depravity and malice. Lots of tense thrills and close calls for the last thirty minutes during a hard fought battle for survival, and Barbarian features a good amount of nasty and bloody gore. 

The visuals and the set pieces are fantastic. The quiet abandoned neighborhood is appropriately creepy at night and during daytime hours. Barbarian’s underground house of horrors adds another layer to the madness here. During Tess, Keith, and AJ’s descents through the tunnels, it just gets worse the deeper you go. Darkness, the flight of stairs, the torture rooms, and the shelf with rows of VHS tapes? It hits a lot harder, when you know, or at least have a good idea about the sick and disturbing footage on those tapes. Oh, and I can’t forget about the nursery room and THAT particular breast feeding scene.

A good all around cast for this one. Georgina Campbell’s Tess makes A LOT of questionable decisions. Still, Campbell believably plays a resourceful and scrappy survivor, who knows when to play along with the mother for her role as the baby, because it’ll work to her advantage in the long run. Tess is a good person, who cares about helping others, even if she puts herself at risk during dangerous rescue missions. Also, maybe things would’ve worked out differently for Tess, if the two arrogant and pompous cops actually did their jobs. Instead, Tess was on the receiving end of ridicule and a half-assed effort.

Bill Skarsgard delivers a solid performance, playing the genuinely nice and somewhat nervous guy, who makes an earnest attempt to break the ice with Tess. Richard Brake’s screen time is short, but he still makes a strong impact, because you’ll know very quickly that Frank is an evil and deeply disturbed man. 

Kudos to Matthew Patrick Davis for his portrayal of The Mother. It’s a strange conflict, because The Mother is a hideous monster, but you can still feel sympathy for her. She’s a tragic character, who never had a chance at a normal life, and during the final moments of the movie, you’ll see a more compassionate side of The Mother. 

And I can’t forget about Jaymes Butler. Butler, playing a homeless man named Andre, fills the role of the harbinger of doom here. Limited screen time for him, but Butler is an excellent storyteller. It’s all the little things, including the pain in Butler’s eyes, and his strained voice, when he tries to warn Tess, and when Andre tells AJ and Tess the truth about The Mother. Remember, Andre is a shaken and haunted man, the sole survivor, who’s carrying around the dark secrets behind the history of the house, as the last surviving resident of what’s basically a ghost town. 

But Justin Long really steals the show here. AJ is a morally bankrupt asshole, a slimy douchebag with a bad case of butterfingers at the worst possible moments, who refuses to take any kind of accountability for his actions. You’d think an actor, who’s about to lose his career over some serious allegations would learn his lessons, turn over a new leaf, and put some real effort into turning his life around? Nope. Not AJ. 

Justin Long does a remarkable job of convincing you that AJ is a despicable human being. There’s a scene towards the end, when you think maybe AJ has finally realized the error of his ways. He sounds remorseful, and he regrets his mistakes. But The Mother appears, and he quickly turns into a weasel, who’s only concerned with saving his own ass. AJ got what he deserved in the end, because his cowardly plan backfired, horribly. A fitting ending for a nincompoop, who quickly ran out of lucky breaks during the home stretch.

Rating- 8/10