In an interview with Eli Roth on Shudder’s History of Horror podcast, Stephen King said, “Humor and horror are really two sides of the same coin.” Both frights and laughs are designed to catch the audience by surprise and elicit an instinctive emotional reaction; it’s just that one of those reactions is fear and the other is amusement. Although they make for well-suited bedfellows, it’s almost impossible to pull off both of them effectively within the same movie. And that’s what makes Zach Cregger’s Barbarian such an impressive achievement. Not only is Barbarian one of the most terrifying horror films of the year; it also manages to be one of the funniest movies of the year. Cregger switches seamlessly between deeply disturbing scenes of abject terror and laugh-out-loud moments of shameless silliness. But the humor never detracts from the horror and vice versa.
Critics recently pulled out the term “tonal inconsistency” – an old chestnut in the world of media criticism – in their reviews of Thor: Love and Thunder. Taika Waititi’s Thor sequel mixed dark storylines like Jane Foster dying of cancer and a god-slayer kidnapping children with ludicrous gags like screaming space goats and jealous Asgardian weaponry. But tonal inconsistency isn’t always a bad thing. Barbarian proves that conflicting tones don’t necessarily ruin a movie. If they’re mixed well, unsettling horror and broad comedy can actually enhance one another. In Barbarian, the laughs are a welcome break from the relentless terror, and the terror rears its head to shock the audience out of their laughter.
The movie opens with Tess Marshall, played by Georgina Campbell, arriving in Detroit for a job interview and finding that her Airbnb is already occupied by a location scout named Keith Toshko, played by Bill Skarsgård. This double-booked Airbnb trapping two strangers under the same roof is a more or less familiar horror movie setup. As Keith waves his red flags at Tess, Barbarian’s creepy first act seems to be heading in a pretty predictable direction – especially with the casting of Pennywise himself as the mysterious Airbnb cohabitor. But the movie takes a wild left turn around the midpoint when Tess gets locked in the basement and discovers a concealed torture chamber. As the basement’s secret passages take the audience deeper and deeper underground, they have no idea what to expect. It turns out Keith was telling the truth all along. He doesn’t pose any threat to Tess; a feral, inbred, deformed woman known only as “The Mother” poses a threat to both of them.
Cregger builds masterfully to Barbarian’s first gruesome, truly shocking moment when Tess follows Keith’s cries for help into the tunnels, learns that there’s someone else down there, then watches Keith’s head get smashed against a wall by the shrieking “Mother.” Cut to: sunny Los Angeles, where up-and-coming sitcom actor A.J. Gilbride is gleefully singing to himself, without a care in the world, as he drives his convertible with a gorgeous ocean view. Within moments, A.J.’s life falls apart as his reps call him to warn him about an imminent Hollywood Reporter article publicizing allegations that he sexually assaulted a co-star on the set of his new TV pilot. The best-case scenario is that he’ll be dropped from the project and stand trial for rape charges. At first, it’s unclear how A.J. ties into the main plot – until his business manager tells him to start liquidating and he heads to Detroit to check on one of his rental properties.
Justin Long makes this character work spectacularly. If the Academy had any love for the horror genre, he’d be a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Actor nod. Any other horror film would become too far-fetched when a character discovers a hidden torture dungeon under his rental property and immediately starts measuring it up so he can update the Airbnb listing with a more expensive square footage. But Long plays this role with so much conviction and authenticity that it’s completely believable that this guy would miss all the warning signs and just think about how much extra money he could make.
Creating genuinely frightening horror without resorting to cheap tricks like gore and jump scares is tough enough as it is. Mixing in elements of comedy is an even trickier tightrope walk. Not only do all of Barbarian’s jump scares feel earned; its laughs do, too, because the comedy comes from character. There are a ton of laughs as A.J. takes his tape measure around a grimy underground passage full of human-sized cages. But as soon as he realizes he’s not alone down there and he’s too deep into the tunnels to find his way back out, Cregger switches straight back to terror mode without missing a beat – and these scares are even more effective because the audience has let their guard down to laugh for the past few minutes.
Tess establishes the theme of the movie early on. When she’s pretty sure she can trust Keith, she tells him, “You’re a guy. I mean, the world’s different for you. Guys get to blast their way through life, making messes. Girls have to be careful.” Men have the freedom to be less cautious than women and are therefore less prepared to deal with dangerous situations. Both Keith and A.J. get themselves killed by “The Mother” because they don’t approach the tunnels with the proper caution or respect the threat that she poses. Tess, on the other hand, manages to survive the movie, because she figures out how to keep The Mother happy to bide her time, then plots her escape when the time is right.
Barbarian might have some well-worn horror tropes in its construction – the cops are useless, the basement is full of dark secrets, and Tess emerges as the “final girl” – but its tonal approach, blending grisly thrills with broad laughs, is fiercely original. The success of Barbarian is proof that the franchise phenomenon hasn’t engulfed Hollywood just yet. This is a great movie to watch in a theater with an audience, and it has nothing to do with existing IP.