Barbarian (2022)
Released: September 9th, 2022
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Director: Zach Cregger
Writers: Zach Cregger
Cast: Georgina Campbell, Justin Long, Bill Skarsgård
Opening Thoughts:
I never loved Barbarian as much as others did. Though, I will say upon rewatching the film, I found more to enjoy and saw a different perspective that helped elevate the film above my previous thoughts.
Plot:
A woman rents out a cheap AirBnB(boycott THEM!) in a Detroit suburb and uncovers a horrific truth about what lurks beneath.
Dislikes:
The element I loathe the most is the horror movie logic that needs to be put in motion for this movie to work. It takes a lot of acrobatics to spin this right. I feel if it had less of this, I would be more of a fan of this film. I want real characters making real decisions that people would actually make. That being said, I do work in retail and I do see people that would very much make the same terrible decisions time and time again. So perhaps I’m giving too much credit to the human race.
Likes:
We have your standard monster in this film. This movie feels a lot like other films in recent memory. Closed, tight spaces and something uncanny lurking in the darkness. That being said, the movie does take a different approach that I can respect. It portrays monsters very much in a spectrum.
We have the traditional monster, who is actually less monstrous than most of the humans. A monster created by neglect and cruelty. One that with understanding, patience, and guidance may have been less monstrous than we initially would see.
Maybe the filmmakers didn’t intend on me to feel a certain way, but I could relate this movie to how the United States has treated the city of Detroit. We so often like to place blame on the people, but so often they are products of their environment. Detroit was once a shining city, but it turned to rust. Because the world changed and rather than implementing change and evolving, the state and federal levels remained stagnant and allowed this once great city to become crippled, rusted, and destroyed. When we see the result of decades of neglect, we are appalled and quick to condemn despite learning the true nature of what had occurred. So in a way, the monster of this film is only that way because society turned its back upon it. If there was more structure, compassion, and guidance, things could have been better and the results of this film wouldn’t be so horrific.
Closing Thoughts:
Some people rave about how good this movie is. I commend the film for showcasing something different, but I feel the characters were inherently too cartoonish and one-dimensional which diminishes the effectiveness of the film’s goals. I still don’t love this movie as other people do. The human characters do so many stupid horror movie things that it pushes the limits of reality. However, i see more value to the film now than I did previously.
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