The horror movie Barbarian rules because [massive spoilers ahead]
A big part of the fun of watching Barbarian, one of the buzziest horror movies in the long lead-up to Halloween, comes from discovering all its twists and turns for the first time. But even more fun than that is what comes after watching it: thinking through how thoughtful those twists are, and how they change the kind of movie Barbarian is.
[Ed. note: Spoilers for the entirety of Barbarian follow. For those who don’t want ending spoilers, our spoiler-light review is here. Warning: this article includes discussion of sexual assault and self-harm.]
Barbarian’s first act is coy, using the audience’s limited perspective to imbue everything in its small Airbnb setting with menace. When Tess (Georgina Campbell) decides to ride out a storm with Keith (Bill Skarsgård, best known as Pennywise from the It films) in the small house they unwittingly double-booked on separate websites, Zach Cregger’s script immediately sets up two threats. The first is Keith, a strange man Tess does not know, played by an actor widely known for his role as a horror villain. The other is the house itself, which is nondescript to a point where it’s almost certainly wrong in some way.
In the film’s first 40 minutes, the biggest question is simple but compelling: Will the movie’s horror come from Keith, the house on Barbary Street, or maybe even both? At the end of the first act, the house appears to be the primary threat, as deep in its basement lurks a secret passage hiding a cell with a camera and a filthy cot, and a passage leading deep into a series of tunnels where something lurks. And that something kills Keith, leaving Tess’ fate uncertain.
Then the movie takes a hard pivot to Justin Long loudly singing Donovan’s “Riki Tiki Tavi” while driving a
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