STRANGE SIBLINGS: Humor and terror in BARBARIAN (wri & dir by Zach Cregger, w/ Georgina Campbell, 20th Century Studios, 102mns, USA)
Holy sh*t.
Writer/director Zach Cregger comes out of comedy. And it's this skill set that may have made him uniquely able to make one of the most terrifying horror movies of the last ten years.
Although we have no intention of spoiling the MANY surprises this movie has in store for you, we may have to tread lightly around and hint at a few. So if you just want to go into this movie cold, stop here. It's worth it.
If you're review proof, let's tread into the darkness down this tunnel a bit further...
BARBARIAN, which came out in the no man's land year of 2022, stars breakout star Georgina Campbell as Tess. Tess comes to Detroit for a job interview only to discover her AirBnB is double booked. Very awkward and definitely yellow to red flaggy Keith (a very skilled performance from Bill Skaarsgard) is already staying there. Does Tess accept his invitation to share the house since it's pouring rain and the middle of the night? Or does she listen to the quiet voice that says. . .this is a bad idea.
She decides to stay (this all happens in the first five minutes or so) and thus starts off a domino chain that is going to lead to some mind boggling terror.
The whole movie, in fact, is predicated on that horror movie audience reaction of "don't do that!". "Don't go down there." "Don't go back."
Kregger and his team do an amazing job of maximizing and stretching out the sheer terror you feel BEFORE you see the real monster or reveal or whatever it is going to be.
At the same time, Kregger's comedy chops aid him instinctually in understanding that you can only ratchet up the scares if you periodically let the air out of the tires with laughs. Hitchcock understood this as well. Many folks forget PSYCHO has some comedy almost as disturbing as the horror.
In a very weird way, comedy and horror are siblings. And if you can get the audience to laugh, you are, perversely, decompressing them enough so you can crank the movie into even higher horror gear at the next bend.
The movie walks a high wire tight rope ITS ENTIRE RUNNING TIME. Almost every scene has you shouting at the screen, "What the hell are you doing?!" The miracle is that somehow the movie works just enough to have you stay invested in Tess and her safety because. . .she makes a lot of bad decisions.
BARBARIAN also has a pretty nifty structure. About halfway through the movie, we suddenly cut to a very obnoxious narcissistic TV director, AJ, played by Justin Long, driving a convertible out in California and singing a Donavan song.
You probably wouldn't be the first audience member to mouth "What the f-" in the first few moments of this abrupt shift.
BUT. . .Kregger has demonstrated such narrative chops getting to this point that the good will he's earned buys him the next 10-15 minutes before we realize how this will connect to what we've seen come before.
And there's even a THIRD abrupt change of time/point of view a little later. But at this point, the movie is such a wild great ride, we trust it's going to make sense. And this third jump answers itself almost within a minute. So Kregger also knows how to condense windows as he gets to his climax.
Stephen King has said there are three levels to any great creative work of horror:
TERROR is the finest. Here, you never see anything but the dread generated by the anticipation of what you are going to see is exquisite and profound. 70% of this movie operates at that high bar.
HORROR is when you see "the thing" but it has allegorical resonance. 25% or so of BARBARIAN operates at this level. And it is strangely profoundly moving. There's a whole text/subtext about trauma, abusive relationships, empathy, dysfunction that proves to be very powerful.
Finally, there's REVULSION. The gross out. That may have no other resonance than to get you when HORROR and TERROR may be out of reach. Stephen King has said, he's not above doing this when he has to. And 5% or so of BARBARIAN is pure "holy mother of God" gore.
And once the movie is done, if you're a horror movie afficionado, as this writer is, you do think to yourself. . .
Those proportions were just about right.
AND...
I'm not sure I could have taken anymore.
Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club