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Barbarian: Timely Treatise On Sexual Assault, Or B-Movie Schlock?
Or both? A well-crafted but weirdly-structured flick.
Last night I finally had the chance to catch Barbarian, the 2022 horror film written and directed by Zach Cregger. Like most films with memorable twists that I’m not able to see the very second it premiers, I had this one spoiled massively for me due to rampant YouTube reviews with certain images in the thumbnails.
Can we talk for a second about the humanitarian crisis this clickbait spoiler-craze really is? Barbarian is the just the latest in a string of highly anticipated films and shows that had plot reveals ruined for me. Don’t Look Now was, too. I’ve also had every major plot twist of Invincible (my new favorite show) shoved in my face thanks to YouTube shorts and “critical analysis” vids. It’s frustrating, but I suppose that’s the way things are now.
That said, SPOILERS incoming.
Barbarian starts off appearing to be your standard Hitchcock-style roommate stalker thriller, like The Resident or Single White Female. A young woman named Tess (Georgina Campbell) shows up late at night during a thunderstorm to her AirBnB in a decrepit part of Detroit, only to find someone else staying there. A young man named Keith, who looks nice enough. But can she really trust this…
