Barbarian [2022]
“I’m not a bad person… I just did a bad thing…”
Featuring incredibly intelligent satire, genuinely unsettling moments, and an opening act worthy of the Oscar for “Best Live Action Short Film”; Barbarian is the second full-feature from Zach Cregger. Most know Cregger from internet and television sketch-comedy, “The Whitest Kids You Know”, and, unfortunately, Barbarian is clearly the offspring of such a community.
One of the most commonly neglected parts of films that don’t quite make the cut is what I call the “connective tissue”: The parts of the film that hold disparate ideas together and pull them into a single confluence of thought, feeling, and message. Barbarian is like a skeleton without muscles, ligaments, or flesh. The bones are sturdy and well thought out… but there’s nothing to make it move and nothing to hold it all together in the end. It’s really too bad because, what a set of bones this is.
It’s difficult to exaggerate how superb the opening act of this film is or how smartly written the horror is. It’s not until after some careful thought and discussion that I really saw the point of what the opening act was about… and it’s brilliant. Without drama, and without hyperbole; the first act of Barbarian is a 10/10 horror short, plain and simple. What comes next continues to have some really, really smart satirical moments without relying on “ha ha irony” type of situations or holding our hands [until act 3 that is]. I really, genuinely mean it when I say that the ideas behind this film are more than just intelligent. They’re, frankly, kind of brilliant and well executed.
From a narrative line on what it means to be a woman in a man’s world, to the abandonment/ gentrification of American neighborhoods, and overworked police, Barbarian has a hard grasp on what it wants its message to be and [mostly] executes that message with incredible savvy. Cinematography is mostly excellent and characters make interesting [not necessarily intelligent, but interesting] decisions. In a strange twist on the norm, it’s when the film isn’t being intentionally self-aware that it’s the strongest. In the moments that it “wakes up” and remembers it’s supposed to be a satire and not an honest horror, it doesn’t just stumble, it completely comes off the rails.
I think satire as a genre gets away with a lot of bad, pointless narrative writing “bEcaUSe it’S sAtiRE” and I’m not sure why it is that audiences are so willing to wave away plot contrivances, meaningless hand-holding, and destinationless journeys in the name of social personification. I wish it was something looked at with the same critical eye other films are held to when it comes to the overall production, plot, and experience of the piece as a whole. I firmly believe this is the cause for Barbarian’s generally favorable ratings.
In pieces? Barbarian is pretty good. Like I mentioned; the opening act is a 10/10. The middle is a 6, and the ending is a 3 or a 4 because, as the film goes on, the less it has to say, and the less articulately it says it. I would love a pure horror film from Zach Cregger in the future. When this film is being exactly that – pure, honest, and present in the moment – it is seriously genius. Unfortunately, that purity, honesty, and presentness only lasts for around the first 20 minutes of the film and in its underlying purposes thereafter. Maybe he’ll get it right next time, and I look forward to trying again right along with him, because I see some truly staggering potential here. As for this one? All I can say is,
“Nope.”
