Barbarian (2022)
Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2022 12:03 pm
There's a moment in 2022's Barbarian -- and I'm getting ahead of myself here -- but there's a moment where a woman discovers the AirBnB she's staying in has a secret dungeon in the basement that contains, among other things, a small room adorned with a bloody mattress and a video camera on a tripod. After escaping from the basement, a stranger she crossed paths with (who may or may not be a bad guy) insists on investigating the basement. Moments later when he enters the basement and stops responding, this woman, who is standing three feet from the front door of the home, heads back down to the basement to see what's happened. It's that moment from every horror film where the audience yells and screams at the on-screen morons, begging them not to do what they're about to do. This is not a dumb woman; she's in Detroit interviewing for a job, and yet in a 24 hour period she makes so many terrible decisions that you have to wonder who would hire her, how she was able to find Detroit on a map, drive a car, or even feed herself.
So, let's backup. In the beginning of the film, a young woman named Tess discovers the AirBnB she has rented has been double-booked and another guest, Keith (Bill Skarsgård), had been staying there for weeks. Keith hesitantly allows her to come in of the rain, which smells like a trap. He offers her a drink, which smells like a trap. There's not a single hotel room available in Detroit due to a convention in town and so Bill offers to let her stay the night, which smells like a trap. Even with all the misdirection, the first act feels like watching a frog in a pot where the temperature is being raised slowly so as not to alert the frog until suddenly the water is boiling.
Things are not what they seem in the AirBnB, and soon Tess, along with the home's owner, AJ (Justin Long), find themselves entering and attempting to escape a labyrinth of tunnels and underground rooms beneath the home. A creepy guy staying in your AirBnB is only the beginning of the duo's problems.
Barbarian attempts to scare its audience with a series of jump scares and creepout moments, and in those moments it succeeds, but the suspension of disbelief required to buy into all of this is pretty steep. If people running through dark tunnels while being chased by monsters gives you the willies, this film is for you; if, on the other hand, you're the type of person who wonders what subterranean monsters eat while living underground for decades or exactly how they're luring people to the AirBnB (do the monsters have cell phones?), this might not be the brain-challenging film you're looking for. It seems highly improbable that a single house could be the site of so many murders and go undetected for decades, especially when AirBnB guests continue to check in and promptly vanish. (Mattress was bloody and monster tried to kill me. 1/5 stars, would not stay here again!)
It's possible I'm overthinking things. Barbarian is a jumpy good time with plenty of spine-tingling moments and some very light social commentary. Just be sure to check your brain at the door -- it'll be one less thing for the monsters to eat.
Barbarian (2022) is currently streaming on HBO Max.