Barbarian

Director: Zach Cregger
Starring: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick, Richard Brake, Kurt Braunohler, Jaymes Butler, Kate Bosworth, Brooke Dillman, Kate Nichols, Sara Paxton
Running Time: 102 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

There's a clever misdirection in Zach Cregger's Barbarian that'll cause viewers to second guess their original suspicions. It's a jarring transition intended to take the story somewhere exciting and unexpected, and for a while it does, successfully pulling off a reversal that has us on pins and needles. We're eager to see how the scenario plays out, knowing that comes with the hope it can join a handful of horror films released over the past few years that transcend the genre to become something more. But hype can be a movie's worst enemy, and while watching, I couldn't help but wonder whether my reaction would be the same not knowing the enthusiastic response it's already gotten from critics and audiences.

Atmospherically directed and at times genuinely terrifying, it's easy to understand all the praise and even agree with much of it. A lot of that comes early, before the curtain's pulled back with a reveal that's initially mind blowing, until later planting the film in more traditionally familiar territory. It's still delivered exceptionally well, but there's sort of a comedown in realizing it might not be going to those unexplored places after all. Instead, we get an effort more along the lines of The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw remakes, with shades of 1973's The Baby. But even as the frustration of elevated expectations loom large, it's hard to complain about what we do get, which is better made and more rewarding than those titles by a considerable margin. 

When Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) arrives at an Airbnb rental house in a rundown area of Detroit the night before a major job interview, she discovers it's been double-booked and is already being occupied by a man named Keith Toshko (Bill Skarsgård). After they process this awkward dilemma and it's clear she'll have no place to stay, Keith suggests Tess crash there for the night while he sleeps on the couch. Initially suspicious of his nervous demeanor, she reluctantly agrees, as they spend the evening talking and discovering shared interests. 

Despite finding her door mysteriously unlocked during the night, Tess returns to the house the next day after the interview, only to make an unnerving discovery in the basement, where she's then trapped. Meanwhile, in a seemingly unrelated event on the West Coast, an actor named AJ Gilbride (Justin Long) is about to be fired from an upcoming TV series due to rape allegations from a co-star.  But as a captive Tess fights to stay alive, her chances of survival dwindle when sordid, disturbing details of the home's darkest secrets start to unspool, tracing all the way back to the man who owned the property decades ago.

For the first third of the picture, Cregger orchestrates a clever cat-and-mouse game with the audience when Tess arrives at this house in a dangerous neighborhood, only to find this man there. She's not yet privy to just how awful the area is, mainly because her primary worry is the unexpected guest. And it's this section that proves to be a masterclass in suspense, preying on the instantly relatable conundrum of not knowing how much trust is acceptably safe to put in a complete stranger. Of course, that goes double for a single young woman, and in a great performance, Georgina Campbell conveys every bit of that fear, to the point we can see and sense it in every exchange she has with him, both through voice and body language. Skarsgård's a long way from the evil Pennywise (or is he?), expertly playing Keith with socially awkward, nervous vibes that seem Norman Bates-like on the surface, but could also be read a few different ways. 

Either Keith's a Ted Bundy clone setting his trap or legitimately a nice guy just as uncomfortable about this accidental double booking, if that's what it actually is. When the ice starts to break between them, Tess seems more vulnerable and at ease, causing greater concern for her safety as we never let go of the chance something more sinister is happening. This is all while Skarsgård still manages to simultaneously invoke the feeling that this guy can be trusted and taken at face value, with Cregger triggering the same kind of doubt in viewers that Tess and other women in similar situations experience. 

The film won't again duplicate the heights it reaches when Campbell and Skarsgård initially share the screen, as their characters have an odd, compelling chemistry that can't exactly be defined. It eventually will when we get our answer about Keith, but their scenes are so compelling it's almost impossible not to wish it took up the film's entire running length. As Cregger likely intended, what follows it isn't quite the same, with Tess' excursion into the basement's hidden catacombs and corridors resulting in a claustrophobic sequence that scares in ways similar to 2006's The Descent. 

Whether the reveal of what's in that basement matches all the anticipation is up for debate, but a 1980's flashback featuring Richard Brake as the home's creepy former owner and the injection of Justin Long's AJ do take the story in a wildly different direction. Noticeably cast against type, Long chews into the role of an arrogant, self absorbed TV star (and possible rapist) embroiled in a "Me Too" scandal, giving the actor his most prominent showcase in a while. Seemingly unaware of what he's walking into, AJ is finally forced to reconcile the kind of person he sees himself to be with the one he actually is.

Once Cregger lays all the cards out on the table, you wouldn't be wrong in assuming it creates narrative complications for a premise that started so strong. Some may love the first half, but check out when  last act comes around, even if the reverse could undoubtedly hold true for just as many. But through it all, he still does a fine job consistently maintaining tension and keeping us guessing with his solo directorial debut. So even if it's tempting to consider what could have been, a challenge lies in being able to lay out a path superior to the one Barbarian ultimately succeeds in taking.