I finally got around to watching the surprise 2022 hit “Barbarian” and it’s pretty fucked up. The film itself is a simple horror film about a couple people who find a secret area in their airbnb, but what makes this film scary is what’s hidden in the subtext. The film follows Tess and Keith (Georgina Campbell & Bill Skarsgård) as they both accidentally book the same airbnb and have to share it for a couple of days. It starts out normal until they find a secret hallway in the basement of the house and discover an evil entity that is crawling around under the house. On the surface it sounds like a standard horror film, but similar to what other comedians turned horror directors have done, the true horror is in the subtext of the piece. If you’re looking for a simple recommendation on the film without spoilers, I would recommend a watch for any genre fans. It’s scary and keeps you guessing throughout. Anyone who is fascinated with the reason I find this film scary or have already seen it, read ahead!
THE RATING:
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The reveal of the monster and the motives behind what she is doing is where I find the true horror of the film. The first indication of the film’s message is present when you are shown what the neighbourhood actually looks like. When Tess wakes up and goes to her car in the morning, a rundown group of houses surround her. It is established here that there’s some deep reason that no one wants to live in that area of town. It’s revealed later that the monster is the reason that people don’t live there, but something the homeless man says to Tess paints a different picture. The man states that the monster lady isn’t the worst thing that lives in the house. The thing he is referring to is the man who lives in the house with her. The homeless man states the horror perfectly when he tells Tess that “the man brought women into the house and had babies with them. Then he started to have babies with the babies until they created the monster in the basement.” It is shown through a quick five minute flashback that in the 60s, a man lived in that house who would kidnap women and have his way with them. The man is shown at the end living in the basement when AJ (Justin Long) stumbles across him. The man ends up killing himself leaving a history of abuse imprinted on multiple tapes. The character of AJ shows up half way through the film as the film switches perspective. AJ gets fired from a gig on a show because his costar states that he sexually abused her. We follow AJ as he goes back to the airbnb house to sell it in hopes that he will make money for his legal fund. He gets trapped in the chaos when he also discovers the hidden hallway and rooms. AJ seems to confirm his guilt during a scene where he’s talking to his friend at the bar. This is important because he as a character tries to redeem himself by the end of the film. The entire third act is AJ and Tess trying to escape the monster. They get out of the house and end up at the top of a tower where they are cornered. AJ decides to throw Tess off the tower to save himself. This leads to Tess surviving and AJ dying at the hands of the monster who rips him in half. The monster is also shown in a vulnerable situation at the end where the motive of the character is finally showcased. The monster to put it simply just wants to be a mom. The monster in question is the offspring of the man abusing the women and the children they conceived throughout the years. If you haven’t caught on to what the true horror of this film truly is, it’s sexual abuse and the way that society treats women. It’s present from the first scene when Bill Skarsgård’s character is cautious on how he is around Tess. He’s aware of the way that he could be perceived in situations and decides to be safe about it. AJ at the end of the movie proves that he doesn’t really learn his lesson when he literally sacrifices the woman to save himself from the monster, similar to how he treats the woman that he had taken advantage of previously in the film. He treats both women like they are in the way of his overall success instead of treating them like another human being in a similar situation. AJ and the old man are representations of the man who don’t wanna move past the way that society operated previously. The difference between the two is that AJ sees the problem but decides to not fix it while the old man doesn’t see a problem at all. This is definitely representative of the two different generations. The old man represents the baby boomers who don’t see their actions as problematic and don’t try to change their ways while AJ represents the next generation who sees the problematic elements but decides to not do anything about them. This brings the discussion back to the way that the neighbourhood looks. Everyone has moved out and it looks abandoned except for the one airbnb house. This could be a representation of the old man continuing to live in this world of abuse that he afflicts upon others as everyone else has decided to move past that way of thinking into a better future or it could be a representation about how everyone sees this neighbourhood as rundown except those who have inflicted the pain. AJ and the old man don’t see the neighbourhood as a bad place as the old man still lives there and AJ still tries to sell the property. Everyone else tries to avoid this part of town except those who profit off it or don’t see the problem in general. This could definitely be tied to the idea that those in hollywood and society in general who still abuse women and those apart of minority groups are still persisting because they profit of this hate or they don’t see the problem in the first place. The whole subtext comes to a head when it’s revealed that the monster is the product of this generational abuse. The message at the end of the day is that the monster wouldn’t have existed without the sexual abuse that men inflict on women and on a more broader canvas, the monster wouldn’t have been created if this older generation of white men didn’t cause such hate and abused those around them that were different. The monster in this film is the hate and abuse that these straight white men have brought into this world and the ones keeping it alive are those who don’t see the problem at hand or see it and decide to ignore it. On the surface, Barbarian seems like a simple monster movie but on a deeper level, this film criticizes these men who have used their power to abuse and the product of that constant abuse. Barbarian definitely deserves to sit with the great social commentary horror films like Get Out as it critiques something that is shockingly still prevalent. To put it simply, the villain of Barbarian is older generations of white men and their sexual abuse of women. Anyone who hasn’t seen the film should check it out! It’s definitely a highlight of recent horror cinema!
How Would You Rate Barbarian?
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