Barbarian

Georgina Campbell ventures into the darkness in Barbarian

Zach Cregger's Barbarian is a good meat and potatoes B horror film in which the director eschews CGI for a solid script and effective camera positioning. Tess (Georgina Campbell) and Keith (Bill Skarsgard) are two strangers who discover they have rented the same Airbnb in an extremely rundown section of Detroit. The first act is dedicated to picturing a growing bond between the two before an extensive basement dungeon is discovered and carnage ensues. 

In the third act, landlord, AJ (Justin Long), is introduced. He is a Hollywood actor brought low by rape accusations who is in town to sell off his assets. Both here and in the awkward mix of chemistry and fear between Tess and Keith, Cregger touches upon the present psychosexual unease and tumult of the US which is mirrored, darky, by the more unconscious horror that resides in the basement. AJ is soon plunged into the maelstrom of the labyrinthine basement  where he discovers the monster's backstory,

That back story hearkens back to the Reagan area in a candy colored Detroit before white flight and blight had occurred. I don't really buy the political allegory Cregger has implanted into the body of his film, but the flick is skillfully done and the themes are adult ones and not the nothing muffins foisted upon us by such recent films as Elvis, The Menu, and Don't Worry Darling. The film's monster wears a rubbery suit and we never shake the feeling that we are seeing an exploitation shot for cheap in Bulgaria. However, Cregger, whose background is largely in comedy, has crafted a fine film that captures an essential aspect of horror: that what most frightens us are not the monsters we see, but the phantoms we imagine while in the dark.