Barbarian (2022)

Rated R for some really odd nudity and sexual content, mostly juxtaposed with gore and violence. It's not even so much sexual, but with the knowledge that the sexuality is happening off-screen somewhere.  The movie goes for upsetting at times, despite the fact that the majority of the movie plays into suspense.  The movie also talks about concepts of rape and language.  R.

DIRECTOR:  Zach Cregger

I told myself that I wouldn't watch this movie.  Like with Black Phone, the same student told me that this movie was unwatchable because of how disturbing it got.  But I really liked Black Phone.  Then Henson told me how good Barbarian was and I had to view it for myself.  I've learned a couple things. The main thing I learned is that my student and I have drastically different tastes.  

But I should tell you ahead of time: I had a different experience than most people did with this movie.  When my student told me not to see Barbarian, I asked him what it was about.  I'm somehow fallen off the grid of seeing movies in the theater.  It's not that I don't love going to the movies.  I do.  But I have too many kids and it feels like we need to save babysitters for emergencies at this point.  I also like talking to my wife on the few times that we can get someone to watch the kids.  So I asked the student to tell me about it and he spoiled the whole incest monster thing.  I didn't mind.  Again, I thought that I wasn't going to be watching this movie because grossness isn't my favorite subgenre of horror.  But honestly, Barbarian ended up being one of my favorite horror movies that has come out in a while.  I mean, I like other horror movies.  But in terms of sheer quality, Barbarian has it going on.

But the big pull for me was that this movie was not going to be en vogue in a few years.  Heck, I'm kind of damning myself by being simultaneously for-this-movie and being aware that maybe something is just a bit too off-color when it comes to this movie.  From a frightening perspective, the movie really works.  I'm over-paraphrasing Hitchcock that it's more about the anticipation than it is about the gun going off.  That's what this movie is.  Like with Jaws, we know something is wrong.  We see the effects of scary things happening in the background of this AirBnB, but we don't actually have a lot of experience with the Mother herself.  Even knowing what the big twist on the story was, I was confused how the film planned to get to its final destination.  And even when talking about how we were going to get to secret incest tunnels, Cregger uses some real meta casting to make it happen.  Henson swears that Bill Skarsgård is too weird looking to play a normal dude.  I disagree with that.  Yeah, I'll always know him as Pennywise, the Dancing Clown.  But the movie made him seem like a handsome and charming dude.

But even when he's acting like a handsome and charming dude --or even because he's acting as a handsome and charming dude --I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Everything in the film seems part of it.  It is almost a movie built on a foundation of red herrings.  The weird part of the movie, for a long time, has to do with the unlikely idea that two people shouldn't be double-booked for the same home.  Cregger plays with expectations, telling the story of how it is like being a single woman in a patriarchal society.  Everything that Tess does is strategic, even when Keith is doing the things that society encourages men to do.  It actually, oddly enough, makes him creepier when he's being a perfect gentleman.  Now, part of that comes from the fact that the casting is Bill Skarsgård, but the other point comes from Cregger and his stressing of themes that ultimately do not play a large role in the overall role in the story.  But even that comment is a bit dismissive because these are themes that somehow make the tapestry all that much more rich.

Even up to the moment when the shoe drops, we're questioning Keith's intention.  I love that we get a mislead about who the villain is until the absolute last moment.  Keith, crawling out of the cave, swearing he was bitten and that the Mother was right behind Tess is such a great fake out.  We just get this idea that this man has to be predatory.  And the crazy part about the theme is not that Tess should learn to trust guys.  It's that the world has forced Tess to be so paranoid that she can't stop herself from trying to parcel toxic data from society.  It's heartbreaking in an interesting way.  Then we have to contrast Tess as the proper heroine of the film to AJ, who is just the worst. Honestly, if Keith and Tess were the entire movie, I would wonder about what Cregger is trying to say with the movie.  But AJ really clears up the message.  Tess comes across as neurotic until we see characters like AJ. And, yeah, if you want to look at AJ as being a bit on the nose, you do you.  AJ, to me, is the problem that Hollywood has been trying to unpack for a while.  

AJ is a fairly likable guy.  He's played by Justin Long, for goodness' sake.  I mean, from the moment he's accused of raping the girl, there's something instantly distrustful about him.  We are meant to question whether or not he actually did it because the movie preys on the worst elements of ourselves.  It's just that AJ's introduction comes after Tess's distrust of Keith got him killed.  If AJ was a good dude, Tess's internal conflict would have been problematic.  But it is guys like AJ that remind us why Tess is nervous around guys like Keith.  If anything, Tess's resolve to be cautious around people is confirmed because it is Tess's decision to save AJ that gets her thrown off a water tower at the end of the film.  You can see Zach Cregger's comedy background in his pacing with AJ.  AJ has this fantastic speech (that's sprinkled with a hint of irony) about the role of sin in life.  There's this internal conflict that AJ faces, wondering about the goodness of the self.  There's the fakeout that AJ would turn his life around, given a second chance at life.  But when facing his own mortality, we see how bad of a person he is.  He runs when he should fight.  He shoots when he should evaluate.  He throws Tess off the roof of a water tower to save his own skin.  And yet, his default is to turn back and to tell himself that he's a good person.  It's interesting.

But, like I said, this movie will probably be out of style, given enough time.  We don't really make freak-movies anymore.  As much as I like the film for its suspense and it's execution, there is the notion of demonizing disability.  To a certain extent, it's ableism.  But even more so, the Mother is a literal superhuman monster.  Because she's the product of incest, she's as tall as the ceiling.  Her skin is rotting and she lives like a beast, kidnapping and killing to allow her to indulge her childlike understanding of what it must be to be a mother.  Now, you might say that it is pretty okay to comment on this element of society, especially considering that we have an appropriate taboo towards incest.  But the crime of incest wasn't done by the Mother.  She is the victim of this crime. Yeah, it gives the Mother a moment of sympathy.  But really, imagine being the product of incest.  It can't be easy, living this life.  And then a horror movie comes out and depicts products of incest as literal monsters. It's kind of the same way we're probably going to stop pointing out deformities as something to be feared. If the movie wasn't so good, I'd probably be railing harder against it.  (Which is kind of my point.  I'm a bad person for forgiving it so quickly.)

But the movie absolutely stunning.  I don't know if it felt like Detroit outside of establishing shots, but I'm always glad to see Detroit represented.  I know it works for horror movies, which is odd that I'm letting that element go.  But still, big ups for the D.