4 stars out of 5
On September 10, 2001, my buddy Terry and I went to see the pretty decent horror flick Jeepers Creepers which starred Justin Long. (He’ll always be Ed’s Warren Cheswick to me.) A couple of things have happened personally and globally since back then, yet on September 13, 2021, I found myself seeing the very decent horror flick Barbarian co-starring Justin Long.
The lead actor is Georgina Campbell, but the true star here is writer/director Zach Creggers, who cut his teeth as a member of the Whitest Kids U’Know comedy troupe. I didn’t see his feature debut, 2009’s Miss March, but I’m intrigued that it only earned a score of 7 out of 100 on the review-aggregate site MetaCritic. He has clearly upped his game in the past 13 years. In Barbarian, Creggers takes reliable horror tropes and smartly shakes them up a bit. [No spoilers ahead.]
I don’t know if this is the first AirBnB horror, but I liked that modern touch: Tess (Campbell) shows up at the rental house but somebody else is already there. It’s seemingly nice guy Bill Scotchgard uh I mean Skarsgård. Bill and his bro Alexander are the actor sons of the great Stellan Skarsgård, but Bill is probably best known as PENNYWISE THE EVIL CLOWN!!!! So, as Keith here, is he actually a creep, and, uh, what’s going on in the basement?
Meanwhile, the character played by the aforementioned Justin Long is also dealing with current-day issues: He’s an actor who has just been #metoo’d and #canceled. On the brink of arrest, public shame, and bankruptcy, he flees L.A. to regroup back home in Michigan where he owns a few properties. Those include a certain overbooked AirBnB.
I am not going to say much more, except that this film is scary as shit, occasionally very funny, cleverly constructed, contains a milliliter of sweetness, it kept me guessing, and beyond the topics I’ve already mentioned, also exists in the worlds of police profiling, urban decay/renewal, women’s personal safety, and family dynamics. Basically, if you like this sort of movie, I think you’ll really enjoy Barbarian.
Jack Silbert, curator