“Barbarian” is an innovative horror shot from writer-director Zach Cregger (“The Whitest Kids U’Know”) that blithely plays with tropes and viewer expectations. It is impressively designed and offers a mesmerizing and genuinely chilling experience at the edge of your seat. The setup is pretty basic: Tess (Georgina Campbell) is in Detroit for an interview as an assistant to a documentary filmmaker who champions social causes and the arts. In the middle of a major thunderstorm, Tess arrives at the cute little house she rented on Airbnb and finds it already occupied by a guy named Keith (Bill Skarsgård). What to do? Keith is a bit dodgy, but upon invitation, Tess comes in so she can get out of the rain and call the owner. Natch, there is no response and no response to email. Keith offers to take the couch and Tess reluctantly agrees to stay. After Keith hints that he has seen the director’s films, the two end up bonding over a bottle of wine. You’re sure there’s something sneaky and dark going on, but Tess stays the night and goes to the interview. What is disturbing in the morning, however, is to realize that the house is the only maintained residence on the street – as far as the eye can see, there is nothing but ramshackle, bombed-out shacks, hulls of Reagan’s 1980s economic boom. When Tess returns home, circumstances lead her to venture into the basement where Cregger, like Ti West in “X” last year (and likely also with the movie’s sequel, “Pearl,” which hits theaters next weekend), pays homage to classic 1970s gore-ror from Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven and more while employing clever and innovate baits and switches.
It’s hard to say more about “Barbarian” – the curious title reflects the street name, Barbar – without ruining the film’s deftly ingrained evil spirit. Strange as it may sound, there’s a #MeToo subplot about an LA actor (Justin Long, the Mac guy) whose career goes down the drain and a flashback to Barber Street during the thriving 1980s. . The performances of relative newcomers Campbell and Skarsgard (Pennywise in the recent “It” films) are nuanced, robust and deep. ‘Barbarian’ doesn’t quite live up to Jordan Peele’s acerbic social redirection “Get Out” (2017), but it’s in the baseball stadium parking lot. Speaking of Peele and his latest, “Nope,” it’s the exact word in the exact context Peele intended that falls from Tess’s mouth when she discovers an antechamber. Since the films were released in the same year, it’s hard to imagine Cregger starring in them; the fortuitous perspective is equally neat. For all of its little tricks and tweaks to the old stuff, “Barbarian” falls more and more towards the pedestrian as it irons out issues and subplots. It’s still a tense and worthy ride and one that should see Cregger, whose directorial resume is slim, come back with more.
Cambridge writer Tom Meek’s reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in WBUR’s literary journals The ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and bikes everywhere.
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