Barbarian (2022) Wonderfully twisted horror debut from Zach Cregger

“Barbarian” (2022) Directed by Zach Cregger. Picture courtesy of and with thanks to 
www.letterboxd.com

After finally seeing Weapons recently, I simply had to track down a copy of Zach Cregger’s solo debut feature film Barbarian. 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 stands out in the darkness, 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, 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). As the 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, only stopping once we’re inside the car with Jess, sheltering from the rain.

Checking her Airbnb reservation and key access number (and dismissing an incoming call from Marcus), Tess sighs lightly before exiting the car, dragging her luggage from the back seat and wheeling it quickly toward the lighted porch, shelter 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, toward the sanctuary and warmth of her car. As she does so, a light comes on inside the property. We immediately cut to Tess repeatedly pressing the buzzer on the front door, and we see 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 the man at the door (Bill Skarsgård) confirm they have each “rented the place,” but from two competing managing agents. Clearly, the property, unbeknownst to them, has been double-booked. There’s a loud clap of thunder overhead as the man, “Keith,” suggests, “Why don’t you come inside? We’ll call the idiots!” Following an even louder rumble of thunder, we cut from their friendly verbal back-and-forth to a wider shot of the property. 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° 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, almost immediately and nervously stating, “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. Now back in the main hallway of the house, no Keith.

A brilliant, backward-rolling camera 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 in hand. Following a quick check of his reservation, the property appears to be genuinely double-booked. A little nervous, 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. Until then, she’ll be OK in the car. Keith worries for the 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. “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, then 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 a cup of tea, then a glass of wine from an unopened bottle, and a “housewarming thing.” 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, and a debut film, too. 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 horror short flips genres for the sunshine after the rain, and for a hero plummeting to the depths of hell (and Detroit) as 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, resembling those of Ben Wheatley’s 2011 psychological horror, Kill List. I saw a lot of influence of Halloween (1978) and The Blair Witch Project (1999) as well, in a horror film that plays with your expectations brilliantly, shifts tones and genres amid blood and gore, shocks and scares. 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.