Where’s Conan?

These past two months have been good for horror (Massive Spoilers)

Barbarian is one of several surprise horror hits this Halloween season, alongside Smile and Terrifier 2. Tess Marshall (Georgia Campbell) books an Airbnb at an old house in Detroit located in a rundown neighborhood. When she gets there, however, she finds Keith Toshko (Bill Skarsgård) already staying there. Then things go from being awkward to being weird.

My life philosophy, which you probably don’t care about, but I’m going to tell you anyway because this is my blog, is that while a stark binary can be comforting, most things exist on a spectrum and prejudice is no different. Barbarian does a great job of demonstrating the various misogyny levels, each more heinous than the last.

First off, there’s Keith, who, on the surface, seems affable. He invites Tess in and insists on taking the couch because of his “upbringing.” But it’s a very “nice guy” style nice (NSFW), where he expects something in return. At one point, after he helps Tess change the bedsheets, he hangs around, clearly waiting for Tess to say that he can stay. He also doesn’t take Tess’ claims that something weird’s going on seriously, which gets him killed.

Then there’s the current owner of the house, A.J. Gilbride (Justin Long). He’s an actor facing a sexual assault accusation from a co-star, which Barbarian makes clear is true without directly showing it. The way A.J. tells the story, while they were intimate and she was initially reluctant, he kept at it, and eventually, she got into it. We receive no details other than that, but the fact that everyone in his immediate orbit drops him Armie Hammer style means it must have been really bad. 

Then there’s Frank (Richard Brake)(NSFW), the house’s original owner, who’s still living there. He’d constructed several secret passageways under the place, which he’d also use to kidnap and rape women. The result of what’s implied to be several generations of rape and incest is the Mother (Matthew Patrick Davis). She’s this naked, feral woman who’s also been living down there who abducts Tess and A.J. to make them her children.

At one point, Tess manages to escape and makes her way to a phone, only for the officers to be totally uncooperative when investigating her claim. The reason for that is because they think she’s an addict, but also implicitly because she’s a woman. While awful, they actually break the previously established pattern.

The second half of the film sees A.J. abducted and breastfed against his will, showing disgust at Frank’s activities, and when he accidentally shoots a returning Tess, he apologizes and moves her to what they think is a safe place at a nearby water tower. There, he has this brief monologue about how he’s not sure if he’s a bad person or a good person who did a bad thing, but all he can do now is move forward. You almost expect him to look directly at the camera to address any naysayers who would criticize Barbarian for making a rapist sympathetic.

Except, that all ends up being a huge bait and switch because after the Mother chases them to the top of the water tower, A.J. throws an injured Tess off so that he can escape. Then, after discovering Tess alive, despite how ludicrous that is at this point, A.J. immediately starts making excuses for why what he did was justified. I can’t say that I’m sorry when we see him get killed immediately afterward.

Barbarian is a wild movie and I mean that in the best way possible. It also delivers its men are evil theme in a manner that’s more subtle than most movies like it currently out there and more subtle than how I’m probably making it sound. I watched this on HBO Max, which was pleasant, but if you’re able and have the opportunity to see it in theatres, then I’d recommend that as well.