BARBARIAN

Barbarian offers nothing but tired clichés and unimaginative scares, while frustratingly doing next to nothing with the backstories and the themes the makers so carefully laid out in the first act.

The horror genre is probably the hardest to re-invent, as more or less every apporach and angle has been tried more than once already. So what sets a good horror movie apart from a bad one is often the way in which is temporarily makes you forget the rules of the genre.

In its first thirty minutes Barbarian tries its best to makes you even forget you are watching a horror film, as the picture takes its time to set up the arena and the characters, in this case two young people who have by accident booked a Detroit Airbnb at the same time.

Unfortunately, once the horror starts Barbarian offers nothing but tired clichés and unimaginative scares, while frustratingly doing next to nothing with the backstories and the themes the makers so carefully laid out in the first act.

Furthermore, the structural swings the picture takes don't add to the tension but deflate it: the viewer is forced to endure sequences in the middle half of Barbarian that stretch both the film and your patience.

So don't believe the generally good reviews Barbarian is receiving: this is as bland and predictable as horror gets.

release: 2022

director: Zach Cregger

starring: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long