Yahoo News ‘Barbarian’ Review: A Gleefully Gonzo Horror Flick
If you were a young woman arriving late at night to a rental home in a horribly rundown neighborhood and it turns out to be already occupied by another renter, would you stay there anyway? Add to that the fact the other tenant is played by Bill Skarsgard, aka the demonic clown Pennywise in the two Stephen King It films, and you’d think that the heroine would run for the hills. But then you wouldn’t have a horror film. Especially one as supremely gonzo as Zach Cregger’s solo feature debut, which pulls out all the stops to drive its audiences into a terrified frenzy.
It’s difficult to talk about Barbarian, because it relies so heavily on unexpected plot twists that defy your expectations. To relate almost anything that happens after the first act would constitute a spoiler. And I mean the type of spoiler that would thoroughly undercut the film’s twisted surprises. Suffice it to say that anyone willing to go along for the perverse ride will be thoroughly satisfied with this retro-feeling effort that superbly recalls the early works of Wes Craven. This movie would have killed in the old 42nd Street grindhouses.
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Cregger is an actor/filmmaker more often associated with comedy. He was one of the founding members of the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’Know, and has starred in such sitcoms as Friends with Benefits and Guys with Kids. That comedic experience serves him well with this film, which he wrote and directed and which provides more than a few moments of extremely dark humor to offer momentary relief from its nail-biting tension.
The story begins with Tess (Georgina Campbell) arriving at her rental home on a Detroit block filled with crumbling, abandoned houses (the film does not serve as an effective marketing tool for either the city’s Chamber of Commerce or police department). She’s startled to discover that the house is already occupied by Keith (Skarsgard), who’s friendly and accommodating enough to welcome her to stay there anyway, offering her the bedroom while he sleeps on the couch. She’s reluctant at first but, convinced that there are no hotel rooms available due to a medical convention in town, she takes him up on his offer.
There are ominous warning signs of things to come. While Tess sleeps, her bedroom door mysteriously opens on its own, and she hears Keith loudly suffering a terrible nightmare. But it isn’t until she returns to the house the following day after a job interview that things start to go seriously awry. She finds herself locked in the basement, which contains a warren of hidden rooms and corridors. What she and Keith eventually find down there leads the film in an entirely different direction.
As does a sudden subplot involving a smarmy, self-absorbed actor (Justin Long, terrific), who gets accused of sexual abuse by a female co-star and who finds himself in desperate need of funds to pay for his legal defense. And a lengthy flashback (shot in a narrower aspect ratio) set decades earlier involving the very creepy former owner (Richard Brake) of the house.
Director-screenwriter Cregger displays an obvious perverse glee in guiding his audiences through his outlandish twists and turns. If the ultimate revelations involving a truly terrifying character (Matthew Patrick Davis, in a virtuoso turn) tend toward the formulaic, they don’t detract from the overall effect, and the hearts of cynics will be gladdened by the very dark ending, which would have made George Romero smile. Oh, and you’ll never feel the same way about breastfeeding again.
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