This chillingly-smart debut effort from rookie director Zach Cregger is probably the best horror-thriller of the year.
His brilliantly-effective Barbarian is a darkly adventurous movie vehicle that is consistently unpredictable and unsettling – and provides twists and turns you just won’t see coming.
When Tess – played by British actress Georgina Campbell (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) – arrives late at night in the pouring rain to a house in the rundown Detroit suburb of Brightmoor, she gets more than she bargained for.
Tess finds the derelict home she has booked via Airbnb is already being inhabited by a mysterious man called Keith – IT star Bill ‘Pennywise’ Skarsgard – but with a convention in town and all other hotels full, she nervously decides to stay.
But it soon becomes clear that the potential main protagonist of the piece could simply be a ‘red herring’ as something much darker is afoot in a gloomy complex of corridors beneath the eerie house.
Alongside this main story we see a couple of other intertwining sub-plots woven into the narrative involving Justin Long’s (star of such films as Jeepers Creepers and Die Hard 4.0) sitcom actor AJ Gilbride – who is looking to sell his properties to fund legal action against an actress that has accused him of rape – and a flashback to the eighties in which we see previous house occupier Frank (Richard Brake) scouting women in the neighbourhood to kidnap.
Suffice to say, it all comes together as one absorbingly intriguing thriller – with horror jump-scares thrown-in for good measure – that has a really satisfying final third on multiple levels, after being a noteworthy slow-burner ‘early doors’.
It’s even hard to go into details as to what ‘lurks in the shadows’ in the basement of this unique property – as anything would be immediate ‘spoiler’ territory that would ruin potential surprises for any reader of this review – but what the young helmer concocts is as unique as it is rewarding.
And ultimately working out who or what is the actual ‘Barbarian’ in the film is left open to some serious mind-boggling conjecture – as this will make you think long after you’ve exited the cinema.
Take a bow Mr Cregger, we have a new directing superstar in our midst – and I cannot wait to see what comes next after this, because this laudable indie-horror is anything but primitive filmmaking.
ESP Rating: 4/5
Gavin Miller
Showcase Cinema De Lux Peterborough, Out Now
Cast: Georgina Campbell, Justin Long, Bill Skarsgard, Matthew Patrick Davis, Richard Brake & Jaymes Butler
Running Time: 1 Hr 42 Mins
Director: Zach Cregger