Horror films, when well thought out, planned and executed, have the advantage of keeping us in constant tension. think about Psychosis or inside The glow. It is not the truculence, but the armed conspiracy that most terrifies us.
Good, Barbarian not even up to the knees of those masterpieces of the genre, because of hitch-hiking Already kubrick, but plan and propose something different. Something that is enough to differentiate it from most of the productions of the made in Hollywood genre that arrive almost week after week on the bill.
To begin with, the timing. In Barbarianuntil something truly disturbing happens, it will take several minutes.
Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives on a stormy night in what will be her home in a neighborhood far from downtown Detroit. She rented it through Airbnb and discovers that another person, Keith, lives there. Evidently there has been confusion, because they both have what it takes to be tenants.
Che Keith is played by Bill Skarsgård, the clown from whom Pennywise Element, by Andy Muschietti, suggests the worst. I’m sure writer and director Zach Cregger didn’t think twice when he ended up hiring him. Barbarian it’s a horror movie, and the paint-washed Keith of Skarsgård is the prime suspect of what’s to come.
And Tess is quite judicious.
It is not convenient to advance much more than the plot, and yes to speak of the wisdom with which Cregger (actor and producer, so far mostly on TV) structures everything from the screenplay. The film will open. There is an almost parallel story, which sees Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers: terror existstwenty years ago) as the protagonist: it’s AJ, a Hollywood director just accused of sexual abuse by an actress, who sees his career crumble and needs money to meet his legal fees.
And it doesn’t happen that Aj is the owner of the little house on the outskirts of Detroit …
There is a third story, in the past, that will help to understand what is happening in that house in what used to be a middle-class neighborhood, with a small front garden, which the subsequent debacle of Detroit as the center of the auto industry left in ruins. (even today it is possible to see hundreds of abandoned houses like those seen in the film).
Which contribute “Barbarian”
That said: the contribution of Barbarian for horror cinema it is the naivety of the story and not the blows and implausibility that certain situations end up being, after more than half of the screening.
It’s a budget film in the making ($ 10 million, which grossed on its first weekend in the US and Canada, almost a week ago), which was shot in part in Bulgaria to cut costs.
I can’t wait to say something, but no: wait until you read the credits (there’s no post-credits scene) and see who plays, I think, the fourth character, who doesn’t have a proper name. It is a fact of color in the midst of so much blood.
“Barbarian”
Good
Terror. United States, 2022. Original title: “barbarian”. 102 ‘, SAM 13R. Of: Zach Cregger. With: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgard, Justin Long, Richard Brake. Rooms: Cinemark Palermo, Cinépolis Recoleta and Avellaneda, Belgrano showcase.
Paul O. Scholz
Source: Clarin
