Barbarian

 

Gillipedia Official Rating: Felt like a barbarian eating my popcorn watching this

Score: 9/10

          This is the best horror film of the year for me. It’s also the twistiest. So with that said, I’ll keep the details limited to preserve the experience for you when you take my advice to go watch this movie. And without much else at the theaters to pay attention to, now is a great time to check it out.

          I’ll say this much about it. We start off with our star Tess arriving to her AirBnB on a dark and stormy night. To her surprise there’s already a man there. His name is Keith, and he genuinely appears to be a normal guy, if a little reserved, wondering why there’s a woman at the doorstep in the middle of the night. It turns out that he rented the place using a different app, and rather than putting Tess out for the night, he invites her to come in just to be able to use the wifi and figure this situation out. You can see the skepticism and internal alarms going off in Tess’ eyes, but she relents. And of course with this being a horror movie, there’s more to this setup than meets the eye.

          It’s also absolutely worth noting that Keith is played by Bill Skarsgard. If his eyes look at all familiar, it’s because he played the titular clown in It. And that knowledge kept playing in my mind as Tess reluctantly stepped into the unknown house. In a great coincidence, I had just recently watched the horror film Drag Me to Hell from a decade ago. I don’t recommend that Sam Raimi directed flick; however, it has Justin Long playing the sweet, sympathetic boyfriend. Why do I bring this up? Well, the only other piece of information I’ll divulge is that he makes an appearance in this film.

          In a bit of a redundant statement, this movie starts immediately. What I described above consists of the first 10 minutes of the film. And this is a brisk film, but how does it fill the rest of the screentime? Well, that’s where the twistiness comes into play. But it takes more than the ability to make M. Night Shyamalan proud to create a great film. Without beating you over the head, Barbarian really impressed me by its ability to have me wonder about the morals of the characters and what the film is ultimately trying to say by the time the credits roll around. It’s not like material that you take to Sunday Bible School, but it scratches beneath the surface that say slasher flicks don’t even make an attempt at while being wildly entertaining.

          There’s plenty to rave about this film. The dialogue has a naturalistic feel to it. There’s a couple lines that feel closer to lazy writing, but it works really well overall. The score is also great. And one of my favorite things is how the film shoots its different characters. The film frequently is on Tess’ face, but we also get to peek over her shoulder. So as she faces forward, we’re squirming in our seats and wondering what might be behind her. In contrast, once Long makes his appearance, he brings about a carefree attitude like he won’t ever end up on the bottom no matter what life throws at him. Thus, he is shot more from behind as he frantically twists his head with no clear direction on what he’s doing.

          I am not familiar with leading actress Georgina Campbell, but she does a great job portraying a capable woman who is still aware of the dangers around her. Outside of a couple lines of dialogue, the only thing I feel like the film could’ve possibly improved upon was more of a character arc for the leading lady. But even writing out that critique, I have to recognize that not every movie needs to have the protagonist experience some sort of epiphany. The film had its goals with its story, succeeded, and excelled beyond what I was expecting in terms of simply being entertaining. So who is the barbarian of the film? In a twist piece of writing, I don’t reveal that answer. If you’re a fan of thriller horror films, you have to check Barbarian out.