Any time you think you’ve got Barbarian figured out, you’d be wise to think again. There’s a trap door you haven’t noticed yet, and it’ll open to an unexplored hallway filled with untold depraved possibilities. (And possibly a dungeon.)
On the surface, Whitest Kids U’Know alum Zach Cregger’s horror-directing debut is a gently frightening modern fable: English actress Georgina Campbell (Black Mirror) plays Tess, a young woman who shows up to her Airbnb on a rainy night only to find out it’s been double booked and the other guest happens to be Bill Skarsgård. Stranded with a stranger in the only pristine house on a dilapidated block in Detroit, Tess prepares for a job interview even as things go from strange to downright terrifying. When it comes to the real danger that awaits Tess, the call might actually be coming… you know.
About halfway through the film, however, we reach an abrupt cut that introduces the new star of the show: Justin Long, giving one of his best (and most loathsome) performances in years.
While the first act of Barbarian leans into a Hitchcockian sense of foreboding, its payoff is pure pulp—a B-horror-inflected turn that places this film in a similar category to James Wan’s Malignant. (Thanks to the subterranean horror element and Detroit setting, comparisons to 2016’s Don’t Breathe would not be unfair.) In doing so, the film catapults itself from a capable but underwhelming chamber horror into something truly memorable. Still, to some, the landing might ultimately feel a little shaky.
First, however, there’s Tess—a smart woman whose actions, like so many horror characters, often defy common sense. On one hand, when she first shows up at the house and finds out a dude named Keith (Skarsgård) has already checked in, she makes sure to see his confirmation email before getting too cozy. Minutes later, she takes him at his word that everywhere else in town is booked thanks to a convention—no follow-up questions, not even a quick look on Expedia on the off-chance there was a cancellation at the local Marriott. (Come on, Tess, you’re better than that!)
Tess’s actual degree of cleverness might be inconsistent, but Cregger does manage to build a quiet, shapeless tension around her temporary housemate. Skarsgård knows exactly how to mold his face to accentuate those chiseled features and those bulging round eyes to full effect—and it doesn’t hurt that he’s still perhaps best known for playing a haunting Pennywise in Andy Muschietti’s It movies. So each time Keith tries to put Tess’s mind at ease, the anxiety crescendoes just a little bit more—a deliberate drumbeat as we continue to wonder whether it’s all an act. If so, when will the other shoe drop?
Of course Tess eventually decides to explore the rental basement, and when she does, that’s when things really start to get weird. It’s also right around now that Long’s character speeds into the proceedings (literally, via sport car) in a tour de force of conspicuous, against-type comedy.
Long’s reputation might scream “lovable geek”—those of us above a certain age can almost certainly recall his “Apple Guy” period—but in Barbarian he plays a real brute, a consummate Hollywood asshole named AJ who’s in the middle of getting “canceled.” It turns out that the consequences of AJ’s actions are going to be very expensive, so he books a flight to Detroit, where he hopes to sell off a rental asset—just as soon as he takes some measurements.
A rich, powerful asshole makes a much more entertaining torture victim than a well-meaning job-seeker, which might explain why Long’s performance also cues Barbarian’s tonal shift. Suspense gives way to a labyrinthine house of horrors (literal and figurative), and all pretense of restraint goes out the window with a flourish.
How fitting, then, that Long’s performance feels perfectly in tune with Barbarian’s bravado. The only moments in which the film stumbles come when it seems to second guess itself. At times, Cregger’s script can appear to reach for meaning that isn’t there—or to gesture toward it with somewhat lazy tropes. (Example: At one point, Tess’s only savior happens to be the homeless man she called the cops on days before; minutes after he saves her, that man dies a brutal death for a cheap jump scare.)
But these moments are few and far between. Although Barbarian largely remixes ideas we’ve seen before—even Airbnb horror movies are not new at this point—it does so with humor and panache. (And also one of cinema’s most unsettling scenes involving a baby bottle.) Campbell grunts through her role with palpable tenacity, Skarsgård runs the gamut from quietly creepy to utterly unnerving, and Long is turning in some of his best work. It’s all so good, I’ll even look past that unforgivable (but totally inevitable) needle drop at the end.
