Barbarian (2022)

(Director – not to be mentioned.  He is not to be encouraged.) [Zach Cregger directed, his first, possibly last, effort, although the film made good money apparently – Facts matter- ED.]

“Barbarian” is not rateable on the “Babadook Scale“.  It’s not that sort of horror movie.  It’s the sort on which even fewer pesky script meetings are wasted. You can determine whether you have seen this film by casting yourself in the lead role and answering the following questions.

1. You are a young woman who arrives in the rainy dead of night to find that your B & B is already occupied by a male stranger.  Your locked bedroom door mysteriously opens and you find the young man in the grip of night terrors. In the morning you see that the street would scare Jeffrey Dahmer.  After your appointment in the city do you :-

(a) Get the Hell out of there, or

(b) Go into the cellar of the B and B to get some toilet paper?

2.  In the cellar you find a hidden room containing only a stained mattress, a bucket and a camera on a tripod.  Do you:-

(a) Get the Hell out of there, or

(b) Grab a torch and go down another set of slimy wet steps into the darkness and then into to a further hidden room?

3.  You’ve escaped from the underground cages and the hideous, murderous monster.  Do you:-

(a) Get the Hell out of there, or

(b) Go back down alone and unarmed to attempt to save another captive?

If you answered ‘b” to all of the above then you have seen this film before, although it may not have been called “Barbarian”.  Here are some bonus questions, in case you are still uncertain.  These are easier yet, because with films as bad as  “Barbarian” as our point of reference, the answer is always “yes”.

Does the Magic Negro get beaten to death with his own severed arm?

Does the cellar door lock itself behind you?

Are there false deaths?

Are we left without an explanation about the double booking?

Was there an inexplicable interlude which leads to suspicion that two films were accidentally spliced together?

Is an unpleasant person who drives a fancy car punished?

Do the police refuse to believe the hysterical black woman?

Is the film as revolting, misogynistic, ridiculous and boring as “Bone Tomahawk” but without any redeeming features (such as Kurt Russell).?

The director cannot be forgiven.  The actors can because they do passably, given that they were knitting barbed wire with overcooked spaghetti.  They possibly deserve second chances. “Barbarian” however, does not..