Review: Barbarian

Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) has a problem. It's a dark night in a scary neighbourhood, and she's trying to get into her Air BnB rental but the key seems to be missing. Turns out it's missing because there's already someone (Bill Skarsgard) inside. 

The place has been double-booked, he's either an overly reassuring nice guy or a creep with something to hide, and while she's being super cautious every step she takes is taking her further inside a house with a guy she doesn't know.

And then things get worse.

Barbarian is the kind of film where pretty much everything beyond the initial set-up is a serious spoiler. This is packed with twists and misdirects, all of which are in service to one thing only: making this the wildest, scariest ride possible.

(so yes, it's best to go in knowing as little as possible)

In practice this means Barbarian goes flat out from scene one. Horror movies usually take things at least a little slow in the early scenes (see: Halloween Ends) because there's hard practical limits to how much tension a human being can take. Barbarian doesn't care about any of that. 

Instead, it ramps things up to "the audience starts giggling at almost everything because that's the only way to let out the tension" levels almost immediately and keeps on going. Then just when things are really getting hard to bear, it leaves you to simmer while jumping in a completely different direction.

There's not a lot of gore here (though you probably won't forget the little there is); much of the horror - rather than the suspense, which is intense and on-going - is character-based. Turns out not all nice guys are jerks, but a nice guy who's a jerk can be more dangerous than he seems.

The ingredients aren't all that new (after the recent run of horror movies set there, Detroit's real estate market is never going to recover) but its the recipe that counts and writer / director Zach Kregger has put together a film packed with scares that never feel cheap or unearned.

Barbarian wouldn't hold together if the moments in between the twists and jumps didn't work. From a series of note-perfect performances (Justin Long, who appears later in the story, is especially good) to a canny use of current cultural concerns to keep Tess on the back foot (police: they're a mixed blessing at best), this is a surprise that keeps on surprising.

And a nightmare that doesn't let go until the very last moment.

- Anthony Morris