When you scour the lists of the best horrors of 2022, Barbarian is a name that you are going to see- repeatedly. But don’t feel bad if you never heard of it. The film was a sneaky late-summer box office hit that took advantage of word-of-mouth during a slow September month that followed the big releases. ($45 million worldwide on a $4.5 million production cost.)

Right after seeing Barbarian, I was a little unsure of what to think, but that is only because of how unusual a film this one is. Barbarian is definitely a film that is best to go into with as little information as possible. If you have plans to see this one, I suggest you read the rest of this review after.

(Give props to the marketing team for not spoiling the surprises in the trailer.)

Still there? Synopsis time. 

Barbarian is a film by American comedian/ director Zach Cregger. It follows Tess (Georgina Campbell), a young woman who books an Airbnb on the outskirts of Detroit in order to have a place to stay before a job interview. Unfortunately, she arrives to find the Airbnb was accidentally double-booked and a man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) has arrived first. Because it’s night, the area is sketchy and the rain is coming down hard, Tess accepts Keith’s invitation to enter the house while she tries to book another room at a hotel, a task that proves impossible because of a big medical convention.

The later it gets the more Tess starts to drop her guard around Keith. She eventually even decides to stay for the night. You know this drill…or do you? Barbarian is a lot of things, but predictable is not one of them.

Barbarian might be neat to double-bill with Fresh, another film that can be found, of all places, on Disney+. Both films are quirky and use abduction to explore #MeToo themes in very, very different ways. Of the two films, Fresh is better at incorporating dark humour, while Barbarian is much scarier and gorier. It leans more into classic horror elements, though often to subvert them. Its messaging is also far more subtle.

Barbarian also continues a trend of setting modern horrors in the Detroit area, much like It Follows and Don’t Breathe. Having grown just up a border-crossing away, I feel a certain connection to films set in the Motor City. Each of these horrors cleverly use the city as part of the storytelling. No doubt, many of the communities that make up Detroit have faced their fair share of economic hardships including Brightmoor, the region depicted in the film. Here we see the housing crisis on full display, especially when we get our first glimpse of Barbary Street during the daytime. The effect of the obvious vacancies on the community is striking, but also it is true of what I often grew up seeing after taking a wrong turn. Too much of the Detroit landscape represents American apathy and decay and this makes it the perfect setting for a horror movie.  

The pacing and use of contrasting images in Barbarian is extraordinary. The first act is a bit of a slow burn, but don’t worry: Cregger has a knack for writing great dialogue that keeps our attention during those less terrifying moments. Barbarian is a film that thrives on misdirection and using the ordinary to set up the batshit crazy is all part of its fun. But then craziness happens and when it does…bang…we are quickly cut out of the action to follow a new character in a new place at a different time. Cregger’s use of juxtaposition is intended to be jarring, but it is also effective at adding to the mystery and takes us in some unusual directions we weren’t expecting to go. 

But it always comes back to that yellow house of horrors on Barbary.

Barbarian is also a film that demands that we fill-in some of the blanks in terms of backstory. And all those items in the basement dungeon seem chalked full of a sadistic, maddening history. 

Barbarian is weird, makes great use of changing timelines and shifting perspectives, and approaches the what’s-in-the-basement horror trope in a genuinely original way. But it also has something interesting to say about toxic masculinity, the challenges women face being heard, and the fine line between having a caring, nurturing personality and being taken advantage of for being a pushover. And all this is accomplished with a plot that centers around one the strangest, oddly sympathetic villains to ever be included in a horror film. And no, I am definitely not referring to Justin Long’s character.

Barbarian, like the best modern horror movies, is a film that gets better the more you let it sink in. But unlike most thought-provoking horrors, Barbarian comes in a pretty fun, unpretentious package. Zach Cregger doesn’t yet have a large filmography as a director, but if he continues this transition to being the man behind the camera then Barbarian will likely be seen as a turning point in a notable career. After grossing ten times the production cost in global ticket sales, why wouldn’t people be lining up to fund his next project?