Barbarian (2022)

As many ecstatically raving fans and critics have noted, Barbarian is a movie best seen knowing as little about it beforehand as possible. Unfortunately, that is becoming increasingly difficult as its highly warranted reputation swells up and it starts making best-of lists. People are going to talk about it. I’m going to talk about it. Better get to it—streaming prices are within reach. One reviewer (at spooky astronauts on youtube) noticed the way it triggers fear responses, based on a reading by director and writer Zach Cregger of Gavin de Becker’s nonfiction self-help book for women, The Gift of Fear, which identifies the subtle warning signs when confronting dangerous men. Cregger exploits these cues over and over, switching them up and ratcheting them constantly, notably in the first third. Everything seems wrong in this movie, always, but it never leaves you time to take a sober second look. Some of its tricks may include the following. The premise: a young educated professional woman, Tess (Georgina Campbell), is traveling to Detroit for a job interview. The Airbnb she booked has been double-booked and someone is already there, a young man who seems safe but is not easy to read. Outside it is night and storming with a heavy rain. The setting: the abandoned sections of Detroit, apparently shot on location. Tess arrives at night. The sight of the neighborhood by daylight the next morning is shocking. It looks dangerous even if we are seeing it in a movie. The irrational house interior: Barbarian features a house (on Barbary Street, source of the movie’s name by my best guess) that is much more than it seems, with a basement, unpleasant rooms, and even further subterranean levels cut from stone. The structure: after taking us on an insane 40-minute ride complete with horrifying climax, Barbarian shifts gears and becomes a kind of comedy featuring a boyish wannabe Hollywood bigshot producer, AJ (Justin Long). He is suddenly caught up in a sexual misconduct scandal that will ruin his brief career. It’s entertaining, and a nice breather, but what the hell it has to do with the house in Detroit is made clear only when it turns out he is the owner, and needs to liquidate his assets to cover legal expenses. The thing that lives there: I don’t want to talk about this part. You have to see it for yourself, but it is ingenious, outrageous, and terrifying all at once. Barbarian never stops being something other than what you expect. It is actually scary in multiple parts in multiple ways. I have no idea what it looks like on further review. But the first time through is a real trip.