![]() ![]() ![]() She wisely flees, but Keith goes exploring and vanishes. (If you don’t want to be spoiled, you should stop reading further … and go watch Barbarian.)Īfter her interview, Tess explores the Airbnb’s basement and unearths a hidden door to a dank tunnel, which leads to a distressing subterranean room with a mounted camcorder and a bloody bed. David Fincher sets one of the highest bars for depicting creeping dread Barbarian doesn’t quite clear it, but it certainly offers a master class in wringing frights from both graphic violence and the viewer’s own imagination. Her decision to stay is perfectly plausible. Get out of there, I wanted to urge Tess during the first 30 minutes, but I also understood the predicament she was in-she doesn’t want to appear rude to Keith or dash her chances at making it to the job interview. Read: The people who can see inside David Fincher’s headĬregger mines her paranoia, the unsettling feeling that something is not right even as no actual threat presents itself. ![]() Every detail is loaded with tension, including the glass of wine Keith offers her and the fact that he talks in his sleep (although he graciously insists on taking the couch and leaving her the bedroom). She keeps her guard up against Keith and notes several red flags in the house. Caught in a rainstorm and anxious about a job interview she has the next morning, Tess decides to share the space. The film begins with Tess Marshall (played by Georgina Campbell) arriving one night at a Detroit Airbnb, only to find it has been double-booked: A mystery man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already inside. Zach Cregger, the writer and director of Barbarian, has wittily described it as “Fincher upstairs, Raimi downstairs.” The first half is taut, high-concept storytelling that gives the audience no room to relax the back half is a loopy, makeup-heavy monster movie. It also speaks to a wryly intelligent selling point: The film’s story, much like its marketing, capitalizes on the simultaneous terror and appeal of the unknown. Small-scale films, unattached to any preexisting intellectual property, face significant challenges to gaining a foothold with the viewing public, so Barbarian’s success is rare and heartening. Now that it has started streaming on HBO Max, I’ve received a second wave of messages from friends who are discovering it and are floored, baffled, or simply want to compare notes. Despite these hurdles, the movie became a word-of-mouth hit. The title is cryptic, and the trailer mostly avoids imagery from anything past the first act. It was just a small-budget horror film that had been plunked into theaters in early September, a so-called dead zone for new releases. As I ran into other critics around town, they kept asking, “Have you seen Barbarian yet? You’ve gotta.” That kind of chatter is typical at a festival, but the only wrinkle was that Barbarian wasn’t even playing at TIFF. On the opening day of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, one film was on everybody’s lips. This story contains major spoilers for Barbarian. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |