Barbarian movie review - Aussieboyreviews

IS BARBARIAN JUST AS UNSETTLING AS THE TYPICAL HAUNTED HOUSE MOVIE?

While you couldn’t call the film a haunted-house movie, it’s definitely spooky and unsettling. Barbarian is packed with clever edge-of-the-seat tension, bloody scenes and a handful of jump-scares.

Storyline

A young woman discovers that the Airbnb rental home she booked is already occupied by a stranger, but she is still yet to see that the house and neighbourhood are not as they seem.

Movie Images

Movie details

Director: Zach Cregger
Cast: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis
Writer: Zach Cregger
Release Date (Australia): 20 October 2022
Runtime: 102 minutes/1h 42m
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Country: USA
Language: English

CONTENT GUIDE (warning: May contain spoilers)

Themes (MA15+)

Thematic material in the film include horror themes and sustained sense of threat, people being kidnapped and murder, as well as references to sexual violence and rape allegations. A man implicitly commits suicide by shooting himself.

Violence (MA15+)

The film contains bloody depictions of horror violence, including a man’s head being bashed against a wall, a man’s eyes being gouged, a man’s arm being torn off and people being shot.

Coarse Language (M)

The film contains aggressive use of coarse language, including the words “f**k”, “s**t” and “bitch”.

Drug Use (PG)

A character tells the police that she is not a “crackhead”.

Nudity (M)

The film contains multiple scenes depicting female breasts nudity and brief female full frontal nudity.

Sex (M)

The word “f**k” is used in a sexual context.

mpaa rating

R (for some strong violence and gore, disturbing material, language throughout and nudity)

Aussie boy's thoughts

All you probably need to know is that Barbarian is a savage horror movie that kicks off with a very nerve-wracking first act, before it takes an unforeseen turn and then eventually makes its way back to connect and continue from the first act. This is a structure of storytelling we only get to see very rarely, but when it’s done in this case, it makes an expertly-crafted edge-of-the-seat horror film with extremely clever turns and brilliant tension.

If you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ll likely get the idea that this film centres on a young woman renting an Airbnb, only to find out that the house is already occupied by a stranger, and in the trailer, that’s all followed by a bunch of bizarre horror sequences. That’s all you really need to know if you want some clues, but this is one of those films best going into with little-to-no information and a fresh bag of popcorn.

Although it’s probably not the scariest horror film to turn up in the past years, literally every second will have you feeling very uneasy and on edge as you wait for a jump-scare or a big twist. It’s so hard to talk about this movie without giving it away, but to assure you’ll enjoy what the film has to offer, Barbarian is filled with great performances leading through an entertaining story packed with scary imagery and lengthy sequences of solid tension where soundtrack isn’t completely necessary, worth waiting to see what happens next.

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