Barbarian

Sometimes, you can tell within the first five minutes of a horror movie that, despite its seemingly classic slasher premise, there's something different about it. Barbarian is that kind of different — in the best way. It's visually refined, atmospheric, and incredibly suspenseful. Even when it inevitably veers into entertaining absurdity, it keeps you thoroughly engaged the whole time. This is exactly how I imagine a well-made modern horror film. (24/05/2024)

Ignorance truly is bliss. Rarely today do I go to the movies blind, without the slightest knowledge of the premise or the cast. With Barbarian this was a double advantage because the question marks started piling up right from the first few minutes. It's a shame that the opening act is by far the best. Every little twist brings about a first-class thrill, and the last two minutes had me glued so tightly that I almost couldn't bear it. Unfortunately, the second and third acts, when compared directly, are a diluted, subversively told fairy tale that becomes weaker the clearer the who, what, and how become. When even the appealingly rational rules are violated in the finale, and the showdown begins so abruptly that I had to make sure I didn't accidentally skip fifteen minutes of runtime, it seemed almost a pity if you consider the massive yet rather quickly blown potential. (02/11/2022)

I find it a bit sad and perhaps unfair that audiences in recent years have given more favorable to horror films that subvert, satirise and mock genre tropes, rather than to some of the attempted serious and atmospheric horror films of the traditional cut, which at best end up with a 58% rating, but at the same time it cannot be denied that Barbarian works well in its subversion and surprise. (07/12/2022)

Barbarian is without exaggeration one of the most difficult films to review that I have ever had the opportunity to see. It combines several "sub-films" that are qualitatively very different, and this makes the whole result impossible to rate. For me, the first part is without a doubt the event of the year. A woman arrives at an Airbnb accommodation, but there is already one visitor staying there, and so begins a strange night that takes her to a situation no one would envy. It’s an excellent and original idea, with great acting, perfect dialogue and atmosphere, and a masterful build-up, it all makes the first act an unbeatable part that escalates ad absurdum, and I couldn’t even breathe during its finale. But from that point on (which is about halfway through), the story turns 180 degrees elsewhere and the whole hitherto masterful film collapses like a Ferrari hitting a speed bump at 180 km/h. A whole new story and a new character that replace a very intense film with intelligent characters with a disastrous line with an worse protagonist that seems to have come from the hands of a completely different director. And the film follows the same note until the end. The whole thing feels terribly contradictory, towards the end the film lacks logic and idea, throwing one piece of nonsense after another and doesn't know how to go on. I loved the great horror in the first half, when I was chattering in bliss over the film of the year, I hated the ending and I’m disappointed by the unfulfilled potential at the same time, and actually I don't know how to perceive the end result at all, because combining such diametrically opposed two parts in one film is perhaps not even realistically possible... (14/09/2022)

The concise first third of Barbarians with the wonderful Bill is great; the second has an unexpected comedic edge (I roared with laughter at the twist from jump-scare to reality farce), and the third is a mishmash, but... the original mix of inverse home invasion, lactation instruction, collecting of VHS snuff flicks, drama about cruel motherhood and black comedy about the MeToo movement simply kept me watching, even though some of the dramaturgical choices are very dubious and the film barely holds together in places. As another entry in the canon of Detroit high-concept horror movies (the magnificent and in some ways related Don’t Breathe and the more allegorical It Follows are worth mentioning), it is indeed a more than respectable work. A place where society has collapsed invites the rise of barbarism. (28/10/2022)