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Barbarians Reviews

Charles Dorfman never gets this blend of satire, psychological thriller and chilly, understated horror to congeal into something memorable.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2023

Barbarians is sometimes a comedy of ill manners, sometimes an exhilarating thriller, but it’s also an amusingly clever and sometimes violent parable about venality, vulgarity and territoriality.

Full Review | Jun 29, 2022

Has some merit but disappoints because it is more interested in the film's conversation parts than in providing the scares needed for a horror pic.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | May 20, 2022

Barbarians constructs a level of keen curiosity but eventually fades into the familiar, with an unimpressive final showdown. I wanted to like this much more than I did, and I believe the bones for success were there, if not for a miscalibration of pieces.

Full Review | Apr 30, 2022

Charles Dorfman's debut feature, brims with a love for cinema, yet slyly dares to break a slew of the established rules...Barbarians is the year's nasty indie sleeper.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 28, 2022

Barbarians is being marketed as a horror movie about a home invasion. It's actually a tedious 90-minute movie about an annoying dinner party, with the formulaic home invasion happening only in the last 30 minutes.

Full Review | Apr 27, 2022

While the ultimate destination is predictable there are enough shocks and surprises along the way to make this an enjoyable experience. More enjoyable than a dinner party with a bunch of sniping, sulking rich people, anyway.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 11, 2022

This low-budget thriller has some familiar faces but also plenty of familiar plot devices, none of them that well-crafted.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 11, 2022

Its particular juggling of social commentary, black comedy, home-invasion thriller, and horror, with a couple luridly soap-operatic plot twists thrown in, is effectively discomfiting.

Full Review | Apr 8, 2022

Although the story is essentially quite simple, it’s beautifully framed, both narratively and visually.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2022

A slick, beautifully shot, and deviously unpredictable story of privileged, out of touch jerks learning the error of their ways in the most horrifying manner possible -- and that's even before any bloodshed occurs.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2022

The film provides an engaging friend dynamic among the four leads, even while capitalizing on familiar territory.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 5, 2022

Barbarians betrays its solid set-up by paying it off with empty, underwhelming chaos.

Full Review | Apr 4, 2022

Dorfman’s venture into this familiar milieu is sufficiently well-made to make it worth the time. And, unlike too many recent thrillers, it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 3, 2022

The twists are mild and the pacing uneven, yet the unsettling atmosphere and strong performances help to heighten the suspense.

Full Review | Apr 2, 2022

A good, ritzy location, stylish production and camera and competent techs do not make a good movie. There is something called heart and soul and Barbarians lacks both.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Apr 1, 2022

We’ve reached the depressing stage of our society where taking the tiny step from rage into action no longer seems that big a leap. When it comes to exposing the whited sepulcher of modern life, Barbarians can’t compete with the news.

Barbarians is a taut thriller with a dash of humor and folk horror sprinkled in.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 1, 2022

Charles Dorfman carries out his ultimately banal aims with commendable dispatch.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 1, 2022

Although “Barbarians” doesn’t have much new to add to the home-invasion genre or much new to say about rich bullies who make even their friends miserable, it really connects for a good, long stretch at the start.

Full Review | Apr 1, 2022

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Barbarians (2022)

May 28, 2023 by Robert Kojder

Barbarians , 2022.

Written and Directed by Charles Dorfman. Starring Tom Cullen, Inès Spiridonov, Iwan Rheon, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Connor Swindells, Tommy McDonnell, Will Kemp, and Kevin Ryan.

A dinner party in a country house that sees four friends come together for a birthday celebration. But as the night progresses secrets emerge and unsettling events begin to unfold around them.

When looking for an actor that can play compelling, snaky evil, there aren’t many better ideas than phoning Iwan Rheon (the sick and twisted Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones ). He is also not the only jerk in writer and director Charles Dorfman’s Barbarians (which comes from a story by Statten Roeg), boasting a small ensemble game enough to play an assortment of unlikable characters fueling a countryside birthday celebration that descends into weaponized secrets and home invasion survival testing whatever friendship remains.

Barbarians is also a tricky movie to discuss because the story is consistently evolving due to those revelations. What can be said is that it centers on a couple named Adam and Eva (the irony is not lost here) living on and tending to an ancient British land. The former (played by Rheon) is a struggling writer, whereas the latter (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is a recognized sculptor. Her work is also valuable to their friend Lucas (Tom Cullen), a braggadocious alpha male looking to renovate the land into something more touristy and for financial gain. He is the jackass he comes across as, arguably worse than Adam, who bears more quiet and calculated toxicity.

This also begs the question, who do you root for while watching Barbarians , especially when the home invasion curveball arrives? Admittedly, the script is not always successful at making this clashing of the haves and have-nots as fascinating as possible, but a quartet of slimy performances elevates a creeping dread. Lucas is currently going through a personal scandal, bringing his new girlfriend Chloe (Inès Spiridonov) to the get-together celebrating Adam’s thirtieth birthday. And if you are getting the impression that it’s only the men that have skeletons in their closet, well, you are in for another surprise.

However, the problem with Barbarians is that these characters also don’t feel entirely rounded and are more defined by their secrets than anything else. The subtext of class and folklore come across as underdeveloped and wasted. And despite the relative intensity and skilled craftsmanship of the home invasion itself, it’s hard to become fully invested in who lives and who dies or even why this is happening. There are also some serious lighting issues during the nighttime chaos (there is a scene inside a car that is so dark it’s almost impossible to make anything out), which would be a little more forgivable if the story and characters themselves were gripping.

By the end, Barbarians is a debut feature to appreciate but not one that fully absorbs. These characters are nasty, but not necessarily in service of the cutting social commentary, it’s hoping to achieve. Fortunately, the solid cast is enough to keep it intriguing and watchable, especially when all the dirty laundry has aired and the tables turn into a fight for survival.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★  / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Critic’s Pick

‘Barbarian’ Review: This Rental Is Hell

Two strangers explore the basement of their Detroit rental home in this gleefully twisty horror movie by Zach Cregger.

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By Beatrice Loayza

“Barbarian,” a gleefully twisty horror movie by the writer-director Zach Cregger, is both a product of modern times and something of a throwback.

Tess (Georgina Campbell) and Keith (Bill Skarsgard) meet-cute when they turn out to be the victims of a double booking scam, deciding, against the smitten Tess’s better instincts, to share the rental. The house, decked out in furniture straight out of West Elm, would seem innocuous enough, but it’s also located in the middle of an abandoned, post-apocalyptic-looking Detroit neighborhood whose only apparent inhabitant is an unhinged homeless man who terrorizes the streets.

As expected from this kind of haunted-house thriller, the doors seem to open and close on their own, leading Tess to the one place any horror buff will know means trouble: the basement, where hidden passageways multiply and abominable crimes make themselves known.

Cregger sets up dozens of clichés and pulls them in genuinely surprising directions, brandishing his touchstones: American horror films of the 80s and 90s in the vein of Wes Craven. The scares are tempered by a comic punching bag courtesy of Justin Long as a sleazy Hollywood director who pays a visit to his Detroit property after sexual assault charges drain his bank account.

Cregger isn’t as concerned with making bold political points as he is with orchestrating a snappy spectacle that goes a mile a minute. #MeToo, gentrification, the brutal underbelly of the Reagan era — all these elements fit like puzzle pieces into a broader nightmare that lets the context speak for itself. “Barbarian” is all the more creepy — and fun — because of it.

Barbarian Rated R for nudity, bloodshed and suggestion of rape. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters.

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Barbarians (United Kingdom, 2021)

Barbarians starts out as a tense psychological thriller unfolding against the tableau of a not-so-friendly dinner before morphing into something decidedly physical and creepy. Yet the home invasion that flips the movie at the halfway point doesn’t go quite as deeply into Funny Games territory as it initially appears to venture. The title speaks not to a particular group or individual but to innate tendencies that reside deep within all human beings, no matter how cultured and civilized they may appear to be.

Barbarians is essentially a four-character play transpiring within a sprawling show home set in the English countryside. That’s where sculptor Eva (Catalina Sandino Moreno) has decided to celebrate the 30 th birthday of her partner, Adam (Iwan Rheon). Not only is it a good place for an intimate get-together with friends but it’s also the dream home where they hope to settle down. Not coincidentally, the male half of the couple they are inviting for the get-together, Lucas (Tom Cullen), is the developer who cont the property. His “plus-one” is girlfriend Chloe (Ines Spiridonov), who has just discovered that she’s pregnant.

If there’s a knock against the movie, which unspools in an economical 90 minutes, it’s that the characters and their relationships are ill-formed. We get bits and pieces during the first half but much is unrevealed. The romantic pairings – Eva and Adam, Lucas and Chloe – don’t gel and underlying tensions (sexual and otherwise) are left unexplored. The twist that propels the second half is effectively jarring, however, and once the movie enters the home invasion territory, it milks the situation for maximum suspense while at the same time hinting that all may not be what it seems to be. Druidic cultists looking like rejects from The Purge ? Perhaps not.

For those on the lookout for a deeper meaning, Barbarians can be seen as a takedown of toxic masculinity, a condemnation of cultural appropriation, and a critique of entitlement. However, although those aspects can be found in the subtext, this is first and foremost a thriller/horror movie that trades in tension and suspense both of the slow-boil kind (during the dinner sequences) and the more traditional form (during the home invasion). Viewed through that lens, Charles Dorfman’s venture into this familiar milieu is sufficiently well-made to make it worth the time. And, unlike too many recent thrillers, it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

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‘Barbarian’ review: Breaking the rules of horror in brilliant fashion

Movie review.

Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t go into the basement. Don’t go inside secret dark and underground passageways inside the basement.

Bad things happen when these basic horror movie safety rules are broken.

But “Barbarian” — a must-watch for fans of “Black Mirror” and “The Twilight Zone” — may not be what you’d expect.

The brilliance of “Barbarian” is in director/writer Zach Cregger’s engrossing, twisted, absurd and genre-bending script. It starts with what could have become a funny story or the beginnings of a meet-cute and ends with the eyes of evil and social commentary on what makes a monster.

It’s a dark and rainy night in Detroit and Tess Marshall’s (Georgina Campbell) Airbnb is double booked. No key in the lockbox. No answer when calling the owners of the Airbnb. Stranger Keith Toshko (Bill Skarsgård), who is renting the same one-story, single-bedroom house on 476 Barbary, answers the door.

Tess knows she shouldn’t go inside a house occupied by a man she doesn’t know. She knows she shouldn’t sleep inside a house occupied by a man she doesn’t know. Tess is smart and resourceful. But it’s pouring. No other hotel rooms are available. She needs a place to sleep before a job interview with a documentary filmmaker. What would you do?

“Barbarian” is skillfully directed, smartly cast and superbly acted. Skarsgård is famously known for playing the monster Pennywise the clown in the movie remakes of Stephen King’s “It.” You can’t help but think:

“Do I look like some kind of monster?” asks Skarsgård, who delivers a wonderfully endearing, rambling and disarming monologue about why he waited to open a bottle of wine.

Skarsgård and Campbell have great chemistry together. For a moment, you wonder if their characters could become more than strangers. Then you remember that their stories exist within the confines of a horror movie.

Justin Long, who plays actor AJ Gilbride (the less you know about his character and how he ties into the story, the better), embodies someone you’d love to punch in the face. His performance interjects comedy under terrifying situations.

Meanwhile, Campbell is vulnerable but capable as the film’s heroine and damsel. She’s someone audiences can easily root for and become attached to. You don’t question her intelligence even as Cregger’s screenplay forces Tess to break key “stranger danger” survival rules — slowly leading and trapping her inside an underground maze full of secrets and horrors.

“Barbarian” systematically rationalizes questionable character decisions, dismantling defenses with logic, an appeal to humanity and the promise of unearthing mysteries. Bible stories and fairy tales have taught us not to eat apples because they might be poisoned, but Cregger is the snake luring Tess and the viewers to step away from the safety of the garden of Eden and to take a bite from an apple growing from the tree of knowledge.

Bad things will happen. We can step away from the danger. But we don’t. “Barbarian” and the house on Barbary operates like a Pandora’s box we can’t help but open.

With Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long. Directed by Zach Cregger. 102 minutes. R for violence, gore, nudity, language and disturbing material. Opens Sept. 9 at multiple theaters.

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‘Barbarian’ explained: Unpacking all the twists and the real villain in Airbnb horror

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Warning: This article discusses spoilers for the twisty new horror film “Barbarian.” If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our nonspoilery review here and more with the cast and director here .

That one-word title looms large over “ Barbarian ,” one of the most delightfully twisted horror films of 2022, in which a woman named Tess (Georgina Campbell) stumbles into a nightmare when she finds her rental house already occupied by a stranger.

It’s a roller-coaster horror ride filled with suspense, scares, surprising laughs and some of the most delicious cinematic twists since last year’s “Malignant.”

What Tess discovers in the basement leads her into a labyrinth of unimaginable horrors — some closer than you might think. But who’s the real monster in filmmaker Zach Cregger’s Airbnb-of-horrors solo feature debut ?

The nice guy and the meet-cute from hell

At first, signs point to said handsome stranger, Keith (“It” star Bill Skarsgard, also an executive producer, cannily playing off his Pennywise persona), who turns up the charm to get Tess to lower her guard and spend the night, else brave the storm outside. After a few nice gestures and good conversation, she ignores her instincts and says yes — even as Cregger’s script and Skarsgard’s delivery create a sizzling ambiguity around Keith’s motivations.

“My only note to Bill [Skarsgard] was, ‘Don’t lean into creepy. Lean into nice,’” Cregger said. “The nicer you are and the more disarming and friendly and appealing and nonthreatening that you behave, the more the audience is going to be convinced that you’re bad.”

Inspired in part by security expert Gavin de Becker’s book “The Gift of Fear,” “Barbarian” conjures a minefield of misogynist red flags for its heroine to navigate even before she crosses paths with shouting local Andre (Jaymes Butler), sitcom actor AJ (Justin Long) and a violent tunnel dweller known as the Mother (played expressively by Matthew Patrick Davis).

Review: The less you know about ‘Barbarian,’ the more you’ll enjoy one of the year’s best horror movies

Writer-director Zach Cregger delivers a fresh genre surprise in the cult movie in waiting ‘Barbarian.’

Sept. 7, 2022

“[Keith] insists on bringing her luggage in, he makes her tea that she said she didn’t want, he says, ‘Pretty name,’” said Cregger. “These are not appropriate things to be doing in this situation. But he’s not aware of it, because he thinks he’s being nice.”

Is there something more sinister about Keith that Tess can’t see? Does it have anything to do with the doors that open and close in the middle of the night? The question hangs in the air as Tess makes a series of chilling discoveries in the basement, where a hidden door leads to a shadowy hallway and a secret room where very bad things have clearly occurred.

Beyond lies yet another door leading to the subterranean lair of the film’s apparent titular monster — the volatile Mother.

The mother under the stairs

“She was described as being 7 feet tall, naked, her face looking like it was the product of inbreeding, and having an impossible strength,” said Davis, the 6-foot-8-inch actor and musician behind the most surprising character in “Barbarian.” He was cast after a Zoom audition in which he stripped to his underwear and mimicked biting the head off a rat with a pickle he found in his fridge.

“ I was very aware that this could be funny in the right way or the wrong way,” Davis said of his “Barbarian” performance. “When you’re in it, you have no idea how it’s going to be perceived. You’re aware that it’s a big swing and that it is bonkers and that, you know, you’re sitting there naked in Bulgaria with boobs taped to your chest. Are people going to buy this?”

Before filming began last summer, he received advice from legendary creature performer Doug Jones , including the fine line between physical expression and nonverbal overacting and another handy pro tip: Get prescription creature contacts made, else risk biting it while chasing your co-stars through those dark tunnels.

You’re sitting there naked in Bulgaria with boobs taped to your chest. Are people going to buy this?

— “Barbarian” star Matthew Patrick Davis

But Mother’s backstory is also the film’s most tragic. To inform her emotional state, Davis studied profiles of feral children and adults, diving deep into “a dark, disturbing YouTube rabbit hole” of research. As he sat in a chair for three hours getting into prosthetics and makeup each day, he watched the videos to prepare.

“It opened me up to the reality of the lives of people that have been deeply abused, raised in cages, raised like animals, kept in the dark and never spoken to in their formative years,” he said. “It allowed me to have empathy for this character. This is not just a scary character for scariness’ sake. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that she’s a victim.”

“I think that she’s the most empathetic character in the movie. She has never had a chance,” echoes Cregger, who also credits Davis with inspiring him to write certain gestures into Mother’s well-worn maternity VHS tape, which come full circle in the film’s bittersweet final scene. “And Matthew plays it with such tenderness.”

How ‘Barbarian’ brings bonkers horror back with an Airbnb nightmare you won’t predict

The creator and stars of ‘Barbarian’ discuss one of the scariest movies of the year.

Sept. 9, 2022

The sins of the father

After introducing Mother, the textbook horror movie monster we expect, Cregger challenges us throughout the film to reconsider who the actual barbarian of the story is. First seen in a Reagan-era flashback, Frank (Richard Brake, who starred recently in Amazon’s “Bingo Hell” and killed Bruce Wayne’s parents in “Batman Begins”) is her inverse — an average suburban family man on the outside and a true monster within.

Borrowing from serial killer films “Angst” (1983) and “Elephant” (both Gus Van Sant’s 2003 feature and the 1983 Alan Clark short of the same name), Cregger builds unease as the camera follows Frank to the store, where he stocks up on a suspicious grocery list, and as he stalks a young woman to her home.

It is revealed that he has kidnapped, raped and impregnated several women in the secret chambers beneath his house without repercussions for decades, and that Mother is the daughter of another of his victims, born into miserable captivity.

But it’s telling that it’s not Tess who learns Frank’s horrible truth in the film. Instead, it’s AJ (Long, playing deftly against type) whoruns from Mother to a section of the tunnels where even she dares not follow.

Enter the Hollywood actor

Introduced cruising carefree down Pacific Coast Highway singing along to Donovan’s “Riki Tiki Tavi,” the narcissistic Hollywood star has recently stepped into his own version of a nightmare: an accusation of sexual assault that threatens to unravel his successful career.

“Because I’m an actor, and I know the world of actors very well, I was writing from an amalgam of people in my life,” Cregger said of conceiving the character of AJ. “I was trying to think of, ‘What’s this guy’s horror movie?’ Before he gets into the real horror movie — what’s the horror movie that he thinks he’s in? The collapse of your career and reputation due to your own bad behavior. This guy thinks his world is ending.”

AJ, who at first appears to be a ridiculous comedic figure, is revealed to be arguably the scariest character in the film. In Detroit to liquidate his rental home to cover his impending legal fees, he is the embodiment of male privilege and casual misogyny, his puffed-up bravado masking an inherent cowardice and refusal to take accountability for his actions. (Although not explicitly addressed in the film, Cregger says he deliberately wrote the men of “Barbarian” to be white males.)

When AJ discovers the ailing Frank and judges him by his brutal crimes, the audience is invited to wonder: Just how different is he from the monster staring back at him?

Frank, at least, seems to know he can’t escape what he’s done. AJ’s brief moment of clarity reverts to gaslighting self-preservation as he commits one final heinous act, attempting to hide his true nature behind a well-practiced nice guy veneer — a quality Long borrowed from watching men deliver empty apologies on “The Bachelorette.”

“There’s a glimmer of accountability,” said Long, “and I just love that Zach refuses to take the conventional way out.”

As for Tess, it’s her innate sense of empathy — the one that repeatedly sends her toward danger to help others, at her own peril — that helps her understand Mother before she sets them both free. “She’s someone that is used to traumatic situations and is able to understand how to survive in this situation,” said Campbell. “By the end of the film, I feel like she gets her own agency and is able to get out of the pattern she found herself in again and again and again.”

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‘Barbarian’ turns paint-by-number horror elements into something more

Zach Cregger’s twisty, clever script elevates this story about a double-booked Airbnb

“Barbarian” has a typical horror movie setup. Tess (Georgina Campbell) is in Detroit for a job interview. On a dark and stormy night, she arrives at her Airbnb, but somebody else is already there. Keith (Bill Skarsgard), who rented the house from a different service, tries to be helpful, but he’s awkward and a little creepy. He suggests they both spend the night there. If you were a young woman traveling alone, would you stay in a double-booked rental with someone whose sunken eyes make him look like Steve Buscemi’s unsettling character in “Fargo”?

But “Barbarian” does something unusual. Writer-director Zach Cregger’s script takes these various paint-by-number horror elements — a vulnerable debutante, an unfamiliar house, a hidden room — and colors outside the lines.

Cregger, who was born in Arlington, is part of the comedy troupe the Whitest Kids U’Know . But while “Barbarian” is dryly funny, his foray into fright isn’t exactly a horror comedy, and that’s a good thing.

Winding through as many twists as there are secret passages in the basement, the script is more than just clever — it’s intelligent, and its characters, for the most part, are more emotionally shaded than usual. They don’t behave the way horror victims are supposed to act; when Tess first discovers a secret passage, she doesn’t immediately enter it. “Nope!” she tells herself, though her tune changes, if only out of necessity. This is a film that respects its audience; instead of over-explaining every turn, Cregger places enough clues so you can figure it out yourself.

Cinematographer Zach Kuperstein works with Cregger to immerse us in this spooky living space. The house, which is in a rough part of Detroit (the city’s long decline and attempted resurgence are part of the plot), is the most dangerous place in the movie, and we get to know its layout, from the plain, utilitarian furnishings to the horrifying (and perhaps biologically symbolic) underground passages. It becomes so familiar that when the action calls for a change of venue, it’s unsettling since we no longer know where we are. That which scares us is exactly what draws us in — like a typical horror character, we want to see what’s in those hidden spaces.

The cast sells the film’s tangled conceit. Campbell takes what seems like a run-of-the-mill woman in distress and invests her with not just toughness but maturity. Skarsgard plays his part with the right level of ambiguity; he seems sensitive but shifty enough for us to wonder whether he’s the eponymous brute. And it would be a spoiler to explain how Justin Long’s character is dragged into this hell: On one level, he’s a mustache-twirling cartoon villain — all the better to root for his demise — but he’s given a chance to break out of his glib arrogance.

In the end, one wonders who the barbarian really is. Is it Detroit? Is it America? Is it us? Through its parade of screams, “Barbarian” asks an important question: Can we trust anyone to keep an eye out for us — parents, law enforcement — or do we need to learn to fend for ourselves?

R. At area theaters. Contains some strong violence and gore, disturbing images, strong language throughout and nudity. 102 minutes.

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A dinner party in a country house that sees four friends come together for a birthday celebration. But as the night progresses secrets emerge and unsettling events begin to unfold around the... Read all A dinner party in a country house that sees four friends come together for a birthday celebration. But as the night progresses secrets emerge and unsettling events begin to unfold around them. A dinner party in a country house that sees four friends come together for a birthday celebration. But as the night progresses secrets emerge and unsettling events begin to unfold around them.

• Charles Dorfman
• Statten Roeg
• Inès Spiridonov
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• 57 Metascore

• Alan Wickes
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• Apr 25, 2022
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• April 1, 2022 (United States)
• United Kingdom
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• Apr 3, 2022

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• Runtime 1 hour 29 minutes

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‘Barbarian’ Review: Justin Long Is the Ultimate Toxic White Guy in Clever Horror Thriller

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The power of a well-placed needle drop is something writer/director Zach Cregger clearly understands. After honing his chops as part of the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know, which aired a sketch show for five seasons in the late aughts, Cregger has set his sights on horror. As Jordan Peele proved with aplomb, comedy and horror are two very different sides of the same coin, both using absurd premises to elicit physical reactions from their audience. For his clever horror thriller “ Barbarian ,” Cregger clearly took a page from the Peele playbook. With a chillingly relatable Airbnb setup, “Barbarian” mines multiple real-life scenarios and fears to unleash some truly unhinged terrors. It’s no “Get Out,” but it’s a hell of a lot of fun — with a little something to say as well.

Opening with a bang, “Barbarian” starts on the edge of sinister and barrels toward the darkness, with a few diverting rest stops along the way. The movie begins as Tess (Georgina Campbell), headed to a job interview, arrives at her Detroit Airbnb, where she’s surprised to discover an unexpected roommate in the form of suspicious charmer Keith ( Bill Skarsgård ). Playing on Skarsgård’s natural creepiness and icon status in contemporary horror, tension is high from the jump as Keith insists Tess not be put out by the mix-up. When she’s unable to book another place, he’s overly enthusiastic about offering her his bed and a glass of wine. He makes a big show of opening the bottle in front of her, so she won’t think he’s poisoning her.

Tess lets her guard down when she learns Keith is part of a well-known Detroit artist collective, as he explains his little Airbnb jaunt as “scouring this side of town looking for our next little nest.” Just a few glasses in, and she’s giggling up a storm as Keith playfully tosses the comforter over his head. Despite being spooked by a creaky door and Keith’s sleepy murmurings, Tess survives the night. When she drives to her job interview, she finally sees the neighborhood in the daytime. The yellow-painted house stands out amongst the derelict homes, a stark illustration of why people keep telling Tess to be careful in the neighborhood.

Alone at the house after her job interview, Tess is lured into the basement by a mysterious door that either won’t stay shut or closes on its own. Once down there, she discovers an almost comical labyrinth of hidden doors, abandoned rooms, dark hallways, and narrow staircases. Each new discovery verges on the verge of hilarious and hair-raising, as “Barbarian” narrowly walks the line between the comically absurd and absurdly terrifying. Just as she’s ready to pack her bags and run, Keith convinces her to wait while he checks it out, and it’s as unclear as ever where he stands.

But before we can find out, the movie cuts to a blood-pumping needle drop of an entirely different nature, introducing an entirely new character to start the second act. Cruising quite ridiculously to Donovan’s “Riki Tiki Tavi” in his convertible, Hollywood actor AJ ( Justin Long ) is gleefully answering an important call from his team about whether his pilot got picked up. His windswept joy quickly drains from his face when he learns he’s been accused of sexual assault by his co-star, and Long delivers a one-man master class as he slowly realizes his entire life is about to go up in flames. Forced to sell his assets to pay for legal fees, he hops a plane to Detroit, where he owns a few rental properties.

Like Keith, AJ is another study in white male shiftiness, exuding movie star charisma as he reveals himself as the poster child for every toxic male trait in the book. Not only is he a rapist, he’s a landlord, an amoral gentrifier in a historically Black neighborhood who has never even set foot inside his trussed-up rental property until now. He yells rudely at the people who maintain his property, calls women “lying bitches,” and sees nothing wrong with a little coercion during sex. Every time he’s about to get what he deserves, he finds a way to let a woman take the fall.

That’s all before the unexpected third act reveal — yet another abrupt swing that earns “Barbarian” its title by dragging us into the realm of the barbaric. With all of the backstory built up, “Barbarian” has more than enough room to go full-blown horror, and its left turn of an explanation feels like icing on the cake of an already satisfying social thriller. For his bone-chilling denouement, Cregger throws everything but the kitchen sink into the mix, which he gets away with due to the precision and austerity of the first two acts. The finale offers more than a few jump scares and stomach-churning shocks. Though the final explanation may feel like a mish-mosh of extreme terrors, the ride is far too much fun to take issue.

“Barbarian” opens in theaters on September 9, 2022. 

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, waiting for the barbarians.

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Mark Rylance had an easier time making us believe he was the 24-feet-tall "BFG" than he does here, trying to sell us a colonizer with a conscience in Ciro Guerra's tedious "Waiting for the Barbarians." The gentle actor plays a man here known as The Magistrate, the one guy in the 19th century British Empire who does not want to be cruel toward the nomads they’ve stolen the land from. There is a peace within The Magistrate's small and unspecified corner of the empire, one that emanates from the quiet way he carries himself and chooses to help the nomads instead of locking them up. He even spends his nights trying to understand more of their language. If any colonizer could create a harmonious civilization, built on empathy but still following hierarchy, The Magistrate has done it.  

In rides Johnny Depp ’s supremely smug Colonel Joll, with his stiff posture, cryptic cheekbones, and large round black sunglasses that turn his face into a creepy void. He has arrived to obtain information from the nomads about a possible upcoming invasion, and he has different tactics than The Magistrate's social work—he believes that torture leads to truth, and talks about the nomads like they are livestock with minimal significance. This conversation completely blows The Magistrate's mind, so much that Guerra immediately cuts to him in a giant daze while trying to go about his activities, as if he had never really thought about it that way. That this one good apple is flabbergasted at how many bad apples are around him—the moment is meant to be a bold filmmaking choice, but instead it's ridiculous. As he continues to wrestle with this weak inner turmoil, the movie’s pacing suffers, and so does its ability to keep our interest.

The Magistrate, despite the heartfelt way he approaches the world, is a novelty. When he’s told by fellow officers about plans to put pressure on the nomads in order to move them, The Magistrate laughs it off as if the guy had just told a joke. It's sad that The Magistrate is such an anomaly, but it's more sad that the game has clearly changed and he’s too clueless to get it. Any activist who has gotten into the fray will agree—such a lack of awareness to the problem at hand doesn't help, and like with The Magistrate thinking that authoritarian forces will just stop and go home, it defeats one’s goals to be a good ally.  

The Magistrate’s affection for the nomads is more seriously, and sweetly expressed toward a blinded woman ( Gana Bayarsaikhan ) that he meets and cares for in a middle passage in the film. He is protective of her, especially as she details the cruelty she experienced. His reaction to her story is incredibly sensitive, and a bit staggering, but proves that he’s probably in the wrong line of work: “What do you feel toward the men who did this to you?” In scenes that continue to drag the story away from a tangible plot, The Magistrate convoys through the desert to take her back to her people, giving cinematographer Chris Menges an opportunity to conjure some stunning vista shots, the most resonant feature of this handsome but often understated period piece. When The Magistrate returns, he sees that he has lost control; along with being called a traitor, he faces the implosion of all the good will he has built.  

Even worse than the Magistrate's naïveté is the fact that he's a less believable character than Depp’s cartoonish Colonel Joll. But the movie, which has J.M. Coetzee adapting the 1980 book he wrote, believes The Magistrate is a real person, and believes in what he believes, and thus places us in his world. The editing takes after The Magistrate’s contemplative and delicate mindset, while Rylance's performance seems to have taken acting cues from Jesus Christ, especially when he speaks calmly in between gruesome punishment. You can admire what the movie and Rylance alike are doing, but the film continues to ring false.  

It’s not the nomads who are the barbarians, Guerra points out here, as like his previous time-spanning epics “ Embrace of the Serpent ” and “ Birds of Passage ,” which both depict brute modernity and indigenous cultures colliding at the intersection of survival. “Waiting for the Barbarians” would be a fitting title for a thesis about those recent films, so this movie should be a grand slam for the Colombian filmmaker working with his biggest production yet—instead it’s more revealing of how blunt his storytelling can be, and it's almost as if having a larger budget and A-list cast has led him astray. Just as much as Depp’s approach to tackling such text is to be a black highlighter, Rylance might have been too easy a casting choice—there is so little nuance, even though Rylance makes it clear from the start how unusually kind The Magistrate is. Rylance and Depp play broadly drawn characters who represent two extremes of an argument, with Rylance's khaki uniform sharply contrasted with Depp’s dark blue. 

Robert Pattinson is also in this movie, and appears in this review in a similar fashion: toward the end, and barely of any importance. He plays an assisting officer to Colonel Joll who sometimes scowls and sometimes screams, and does little else. Given that the film was shot in 2018, when Pattinson had plenty of screen clout, you’re not sure how much of his footage is on the cutting room floor. But there is a clear sense of the movie trying to squeeze him into shots with Depp, or include cutaways shots despite Pattinson having nothing to say.  

And yet giving approximately five minutes of screen-time to one of its biggest stars is not the worst way in which Guerra’s English-language debut defeats itself. This is a film that struggles to build an effective plot throughout its duration, with passages about scrounging for compassion in this fading world feeling as picturesque as they are hollow. The timely conversation topics are all there—the horrific act of othering, the damage of fear, the grave dehumanization that comes with lethal force—but “Waiting for the Barbarians” is too sentimental for the benefit of its larger ideas. Despite the sincerity that’s in every scene with Rylance’s performance, the movie's good intentions remain wistful, and thoroughly frustrating.

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Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Waiting for the Barbarians (2020)

114 minutes

Mark Rylance as The Magistrate

Johnny Depp as Colonel Joll

Robert Pattinson as Officer Mandel

Gana Bayarsaikhan as The Girl

Greta Scacchi as Mai

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• Ciro Guerra

Writer (novel)

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'The Fall Guy' director explains how he pulled off that famous cameo

• Warning: Spoilers ahead for "The Fall Guy."
• Director David Leitch told Business Insider how he landed the movie's big cameo.
• He's known this star since his first big movie.

"The Fall Guy" is full of star power , with the likes of Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham , Winston Duke, Stephanie Hsu, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson gracing the screen for two hours.

But by the end of the movie, director David Leitch blesses us with one more big-name star: Jason Momoa.

"The Fall Guy" is set around the production of a big-budget sci-fi epic titled "Metalstorm," which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character, Tom Ryder, and is directed by Emily Blunt's character, Jody Moreno.

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After Ryan Gosling's stuntman character, Colt Seavers, uncovers the nefarious acts done by Ryder, in the movie's conclusion, we see that Moreno was able to complete "Metalstorm" thanks to the recasting of Momoa in the Ryder role.

Sporting a cowboy hat and samurai sword, the "Aquaman" star kicks alien butt as explosions happen all around him.

It turns out Momoa is an old friend of Leitch's.

"Jason and I go way back to his days when he was Conan," Leitch told Business Insider, referring to the 2011 movie "Conan the Barbarian," which marked Momoa's first major lead role . "I directed the second unit on that movie and we became good friends."

The two stayed in touch, and it so happened that as "The Fall Guy" was shooting in Australia, Momoa happened to be on that side of the world shooting in New Zealand.

"I just reached out and asked if he would come over for a day, and without blinking, he flew in and out on the same day," Leitch said, noting that Momoa showed up on his only day off from his own project to shoot the cameo.

"He showed up, and we put him in the cowboy costume, and there are explosions going on around him," Leitch said. "He came up to me and said, 'Only you, Leitch, would have me do this.'"

David Leitch is no stranger to pulling off big-name cameos for his movies. For "Deadpool 2," Brad Pitt shows up as Vanisher; in "Hobbs & Shaw," Kevin Hart makes an appearance; and for "Bullet Train," both Channing Tatum and Ryan Reynolds pop up on screen.

"The Fall Guy" is in theaters now.

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Mattel’s ‘Masters of the Universe’ Moves From Netflix to Amazon for Summer 2026 Release, Travis Knight to Direct

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The long-awaited live-action “ Masters of the Universe ” movie is one step closer to becoming a reality, with Amazon MGM Studios and Mattel Films dating the project for worldwide theatrical release on June 5, 2026.

Travis Knight (“Kubo and the Two Strings,” “Bumblebee”) is on board to direct the film adaptation of the popular franchise, with Chris Butler writing the screenplay, following initial drafts written by David Callaham and Aaron and Adam Nee. Mattel Films’ Robbie Brenner, Escape Artists’ Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch are producing.

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Casting on the project has yet to be announced, but news that “Masters of the Universe” is officially back on track is a welcome bulletin for fans of the popular Mattel franchise, which began in 1982 as a line of action figures, followed by the animated series “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” in 1983.

The Amazon MGM/Mattel-backed movie comes after a previous (and pricey) live-action adaptation was scrapped at Netflix, with the Nee brothers at the helm and Kyle Allen announced to star. In July 2023, Variety exclusively revealed Netflix was no longer moving forward after nearly $30 million had been spent on developing the project.

The project’s implosion at Netflix was just the latest false start for He-Man and friends, who’ve been journeying to the big screen since 2007, Variety’s Matt Donnelly wrote, explaining that “it’s a long road that’s crossed through two other studios, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures, and countless writers and directors like Jon M. Chu and McG.”

He-Man and “Barbie” are just the tip of the iceberg for Mattel Films, which has built a robust slate based on the company’s dozens of children’s toys. Among the properties in active development are “Barney,” produced by Daniel Kaluuya; “Bob the Builder,” with Anthony Ramos starring and producing alongside Jennifer Lopez; “Polly Pocket,” written by Lena Dunham and starring Lily Collins; “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots” starring Vin Diesel; an “American Girl” doll movie; a “Hot Wheels” movie produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot; and a Magic 8 Ball movie with Blumhouse.

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