As Jeepers Creepers, Drag Me to Hell, and Tusk have taught us, if Justin Long is in a horror movie, things will not got well for him. I just had to put that out there for starters. Those are some damn good films too. Barbarian is in good company in that regard.
Does Barbarian stack-up well against those movies? Does it stack-up well against other horror flicks of the last year or so?
Not really. It has its fun moments. There’s definitely a couple of what-the-fuck scenes, too. But it’s ultimately a weak story with equally weak one-dimensional characters. As always with a new movie, I’m not going to give too much away with the plot. The bare-bones of it is that there’s a woman staying the night at an Airbnb house in the Detroit area. Upon arrival, she discovers a man is already staying there. They decide to stay at the house in separate rooms, blah-blah-blah. At some point, they each find themselves in the basement of the house where a secret passage is discovered. Bad things happen from there. Then Justin Long’s character, who is completely unlikable, arrives at the house, because he is the property owner going through a public-image crisis, or some such thing, and then bad things happen to him.
There’s no complexity at all. The film briefly goes back in time in an attempt to explain why things are the way they are, but we as viewers are left wishing we had seen more of that time period and the events that occurred then. It seems like a more interesting story than the one we’re viewing.
In my last review, I mentioned how the characters in The Autopsy of Jane Doe reacted how people in real life would react. That is not the case in Barbarian. Tess, played by Georgina Campbell, would not go back to the house in real life, not after narrowly escaping. Real cops would not react to Tess’s pleas in the manner they did in the movie. They might not believe her. They may think she’s a crackhead. But they would also make some kind of attempt to get to the bottom of the situation, if for no other reason than to cover their own asses.
And Bill Skarsgard’s presence in the film was totally wasted. If you have his level of talent on set, utilize him to his full potential. Perhaps they only had access to him for a day or two, I don’t know. But I was disappointed in his lack of screen time.
PC3’s Horror and Exploitation Movie Scale of Awesomeness!
Gore - 5
Special Effects - 6
Nudity/Sexuality - 2
Wow Factor - 6
Acting - 7
Fear Factor - 4
Story/Plot/Originality - 4
Cinematography/Atmosphere - 6
Sound/Music - 5
Fun Factor - 6
Barbarian scores a 51 PHEMSA, so about average. And that’s what it is—an average horror film. It has some nice shocking moments. But it’s unfulfilled. A lot of the story was left on the bone, and we’re left hungry for more, not in a good way. Especially with the promising actors we were given. Anyway, you can find it on HBO Max.
Barbarian (2022)
A thing I forgot to mention, which my wife pointed out during the film: Why does Hollywood always have folks cradling the toilet like its a lover when they're vomiting? No one sticks their hands all over the rim of the shitter while they're puking! Vomiting and retching sucks, but it doesn't make you forget that touching the rim of the porcelain throne is nasty as hell. Justin Long's character did this in the movie. Just another moment that wasn't believable.