A new horror film has premiered on Netflix. “Barbarian” is rated 18+. MyMMO author Schuhmann says: The film starts perfectly, and it is so thrilling that it’s almost unbearable. If the film had ended after 40 minutes, it would have been a huge hit in the genre.
This is how Barbarian begins:
A young woman, Tess, wants to check into a rundown house in the worst part of Detroit in the middle of the night. She found the house on Airbnb. The compartment where the key should be is empty. The area is terrible, and her nerves are frayed.
Then a guy opens the door, looking confused (Bill Skarsgård, the clown monster from “IT”). There must be a misunderstanding. Maybe a double booking. Or is the man a burglar, perhaps just waiting for a pretty young woman to fall into his trap?
Why is he so interested in her staying the night? Why does he offer her tea and seem so eager for her to spend the night with him?
A brilliant beginning that is barely bearable for its tension
What makes the beginning so good? Tess is no fool. You can read from her face and every action how threatening she perceives the situation, and she fully grasps it.
She knows that she is physically at a disadvantage to the man, that she is doing things that one simply doesn’t do as a woman. She feels how vulnerable and exposed she is every minute.
The atmosphere in “Barbarian” is so thick and distressing that it’s almost unbearable. The setting is credible, the film avoids typical shock effects or cheap tricks, relying solely on its atmosphere and the actors. That is magnificent. The first half of the film is brilliant and goes straight towards a climax.
Barbarian
breaks down as soon as Justin Long appears
What’s the problem? Without giving too much away: There is a break about halfway through the film when Justin Long shows up. He is the “typical young nerd” actor that Hollywood calls when they need to cast a wimp. In “Die Hard 4”, he was the computer nerd who drove Bruce Willis to rage.
Long works in horror films because he is not a hero, and it’s something special when someone like him gathers courage to face the supernatural. He was seen as a normal guy in unusual situations in Jeepers Creepers and Drag Me to Hell and was fine in both roles.
In Barbarian
, however, he plays an actor who is caught up in a Me-Too scandal and is floundering. He feels like an outsider in the film, and that seems intentional. Because he behaves like exactly the type of idiot who does not realize they are in a horror film.
While Tess feels oppressed and uncomfortable in the house every second, Long cheerfully walks through the house with a measuring tape, delighted as a property owner at how much ground area the property has.
None of this is really bad, but it’s also not good, and the film shifts so dramatically in tone that it stands out bitterly compared to the first half.
Barbarian
also has the typical Jaws
problem: The threat is much more menacing as long as it remains uncertain.
Should you watch this? Yes, absolutely, if only for the first half. If you turn off the film as soon as Justin Long appears, it is the better viewing experience, which has nothing to do with poor Justin Long, but rather that the film completely shifts with him and starts anew. In this second storyline, the tension curve is nowhere near as brilliant as in the original plot.
Barbarian
is streaming on Netflix and is rated 18+. For more horror films rated 18+ we recommend our list.
Of interest to gamers: “Barbarian” is set to be released as a video game. The creators of “Friday the 13th” are on it.
Another horror film on Netflix that we can highly recommend is The Circle
, which sets up an exciting sci-fi scenario. 100 people are involved in a deadly game from which there seems to be no escape: An intriguing film on Netflix is like “Squid Game”, but the game stops only when there is just one survivor
