This weekend, the biggest endeavor of Zach Cregger’s career hits the big screen. With Resident Evil, Cregger is working with a popular IP and his biggest budget to date (a reported $80 million), and it’s something that he earned through his immeasurable talent that began in the world of comedy with 2009’s Miss March and then took a turn for the chilling when he wrote and helmed 2022’s Barbarian. For some of us, the movie came out of nowhere and seemed destined to debut and then be forgotten, given its not-so-prime September release date. However, much like the movie itself, Cregger and Barbarian subverted expectations and became a hit with critics and audiences. In a time when we’re very lucky to be gifted with new voices in horror, Cregger emerged as one of the best; Barbarian became not only a stellar debut in the genre, but a sign of the gifts that were to come.
The setup for Barbarian is simple but chillingly effective. Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) arrives at a house she has booked on Airbnb but finds that it has been double-booked and is currently occupied by a man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård). Tess is initially unnerved but ultimately warms up to Keith. Playing the role of the perfect gentleman, Keith offers to sleep on the couch while Tess can take the bed because all of the local hotels are booked due to a conference, and she’s in town for a very important job interview. Everything ends pleasantly enough, but in the middle of the night, Tess awakens to find her bedroom door open, although Keith insists he didn’t open it. This sets off a series of mysteries and puts Barbarian down the road of the unexpected as the film consistently toys with audience expectations about what’s really going on.
Slow Burn Build Up & Skillful Misdirection
Cregger’s setup for Barbarian is so simple, and yet it builds an unshakable, uncomfortable tension. The double-booking mishap is realistic enough for the audience to engage with, and it puts you immediately in Tess’s shoes. Her options are limited on this dark and rainy night in a seedy neighborhood of Detroit. Staying in her car has its own dangers, while cohabitating, even for a night, with a total stranger could prove to be an even more dangerous notion. It’s the simplicity of the setup that builds the initial tension, and this is aided by the masterful casting of the role of Keith.
Skarsgård has primarily been known for portraying unsavory characters. This is the man who made Pennywise scary again for a new generation in the feature film adaptation of Stephen King’s It, and this is just one of his offbeat and unnerving roles. The audience is on guard because of the roles the actor has portrayed in the past, but the brilliance of Skarsgård’s performance and his demeanor is that he’s instantly charming. Cregger uses Skarsgård’s natural charm to disarm the audience. He’s not outwardly creepy or off-putting. The only reason the audience questions him is because of Skarsgård’s filmography and the characters he typically brings to life.
Tess’s uncertainty about him matches the audience’s uncertainty, but as she eases up on him, so does the audience. Suddenly, the fear of sharing a space with a stranger melts away because Keith gradually becomes someone who appears normal and genuine. If this wasn’t a horror movie, you might even compare their unfortunate double-booking to a rom-com “meet cute” because Campbell and Skarsgård begin to share an easygoing chemistry with each other. As Tess’s guard is letdown, the audience has now let down its guard and honestly forgets that there is some kind of incoming horror at play here. Even after Tess discovers her door open in the middle of the night and has to awaken Keith from creepily tossing, turning, and mumbling in his sleep, Skarsgard’s performance as the nice guy pulls you back in. It’s all a misunderstanding (he even turns it on Tess by being creeped out by hear for startiling him in the middle of the night). By morning, Keith has left Tess a polite note wishing her luck on her interview and so far, he’s not the source of the tension. In fact, the only tension the audience feels is waiting on what will be the moment this all begins to turn on its head.
Playing With Audience Expectations
The brilliance in Cregger’s direction is how he plays with what the audience expects. Maybe the stranger will be the danger. Maybe the isolation of the neighborhood outside the house hides its own monsters. Maybe there is more within the house that has yet to be discovered. The audience doesn’t know where the danger is coming from until it’s right up on them. Cregger doesn’t mind taking the time to escalate tension by turning the mundane into something that could be a threat. Through his use of lighting, camera angles, and sometimes absolute silence, Cregger builds an unnerving atmosphere. Typical spaces within a home could be hiding a potential nightmare.
Cregger plays on real fears, especially ones that women might experience should they find themselves in a position Tess had found herself in. There is an anxiety that women face when dealing with stranger men, and that is amplified once they’re put in unfamiliar territory. Cregger skillfully plays on that fear throughout. From the start of the film when Tess enters the Airbnb to when Tess discovers the hidden tunnels within the house and finds herself locked in the basement. That’s not to say that men wouldn’t be paralyzed by fear in this situation, but Cregger is aware that horror genre tropes over the years have often proven that audiences feel for a woman in danger because of the perceived vulnerability. Campbell portrays it with an edge of tenacity skillfully.
As the audience has been teetering on whether or not to trust Keith, everything flips the script once Tess discovers the tunnels beneath the house and Keith goes to check it out to ease her fears. What occurs next is an abrupt reset following the discovery that there is something truly terrifying in those tunnels, and the long first act comes to a close. The claustrophobic build-up ends with a jolt for the audience, and then they’re given a shift that confuses them as they catch their breath. It’s a bold move and one that only works because Cregger’s next act is so strong in its own right as it dives out of horror a bit to offer up some biting social commentary.
Changing The Protagonist Mid-Film
Adding more to the mystery of Barbarian is Cregger’s decision to shift the focus off of the house and away from Tess and Keith. Once the audience is introduced to A.J. (Justin Long), a Hollwood actor recently fired from a television series following allegations of sexual misconduct, they’re disoriented by the protagonist shift midway through and being to wonder how it will all fit together. Even though the mid-film switch is initially tonally different, it’s still important to the overall narrative.
There is a lot of dark comedy at play once A.J. enters the film. Long’s portrayal of a spoiled, narcissistic actor is spot on, and it speaks to people in the industry who run through it doing whatever they want, virtually unscathed. As A.J.’s people explain to him why these allegations are a big deal, you can tell that he’s so out of touch that he can’t begin to understand the severity of it. But A.J. isn’t meant to be an indictment on men in the entertainment industry (at least not fully). His story converges with Tess’s for a reason.
As A.J.’s legal fees begin to mount, he heads to Detroit to inspect a house he owns before listing it for sale. This turns out to be the very same house that Tess and Keith used for an Airbnb. Soon he discovers the hidden tunnels and begins to measure them with the thought in mind of getting more money for the extra square footage. It’s not long before he encounters the deformity that Tess encountered and eventually, Tess herself.
Cregger uses A.J. as a perfect counterpart to Tess. He runs through life full of entitlement with zero accountability and a lack of self-awareness. He’s predatory and runs through life causing harm without taking a moment to acknowledge the repercussions. Tess, on the other hand, takes charge, fights to survive, and confronts her situation through strength. They both find themselves facing the same horrors in those tunnels, but their reactions couldn’t be more different. Tess uses her intelligence and even does her part to help A.J., while he consistently falls into self-preservation mode and throws her into harms way.
It’s also another masterstroke of casting. Long often portrayed charming and lovable characters, so when he shows up as A.J., the audience believes that circumstances may at least change his selfish ways, but the character turn never quite happens. It’s a spot-on commentary on some male and female dynamics without being too heavy-handed. Cregger trusts the audience to get the point.
Evil Hiding In Plain Sight
One of the most unnerving aspects of Barbarian comes with the reveal of why there is an underground creature lurking beneath this Detroit home. Cregger plays with different aspects of fear in the film, and perhaps working even better than the Airbnb setup is that evil is sometimes hiding in plain sight, in the middle of your idyllic neighborhood.
Following A.J. being attacked by the underground creature, the film goes back in time to 1982 and gives backstory on the home’s original owner, Frank (Richard Brake). It’s soon revealed that Frank is a kidnapper and serial rapist who built the secret tunnels in his home to carry out his crimes. The creature of the film, otherwise known as “The Mother” (Matthew Patrick Davis), is the result of the years of incest and abuse that Frank inflicted on his victims. In many ways, even though “The Mother” is the monsters of the film, the real monster is the man who created it through the horror he put his victims through.
It’s a shift in the film that provides an answer for the horror but also has deeper implications. The “Barbarian” isn’t the monster of the film or even the real threat by choice but it’s Frank, a man who hid in plain sight behind a polite facade which allowed him to hide how evil he truly was. There is real fear in that safety being compromised. Frank is an image of evil that can remain hidden behind a smile.
Cregger treats Frank as a mirror to the modern day A.J. and shows that predatory behavior, even when it’s attempted to be excused away, is predatory nonetheless. Frank is unrepentant in his actions while A.J. downplays his or tries to hide them away. Cregger’s message at the end is that there are different kinds of monsters. Some are just more obvious than others.
Barbarian Becomes A Surprise Success
All signs pointed to Barbarian coming and going. The movie was originally slated for release on August 12, 2022, and then it was rescheduled twice. First to August 31, and later to its eventual release date of September 9. Reportedly, a streaming option was considered via Hulu since it was a 20th Century Studios release, but fate intervened in the form of test screenings.
Test screenings for Barbarian were through the roof and that’s why it was ulimtately decided to go ahead with the theatrical release. The film was first premiered at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con where the crowd in attendance praised the film. Sometimes that praise can represent a niche part of the audience. A hit was not guaranteed. However, that all changed when the film opened nationwide.
Barbarian earned critical praise, registering a 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with a consensus that reads, “Smart, darkly humorous and above all scary, Barbarian offers a chilling and consistently unpredictable thrill ride for horror fans.” Audiences also responded; on a weekend when the film was predicted to debut in single digits, Barbarian topped the box office with a gross of $10 million, and legged it out to $40.8 million domestically and $46.2 million worldwide on a slim budget of $4.5 million. Everyone was responding to this new voice in horror that understood what the genre could offer through various different means. On the surface, it’s a very scary film that plays on our fears and subverts them expertly. It’s darkly funny in its execution, but it also, like many a great horror film before it, is a smart social commentary. Cregger speaks to a cycle of abuse and its ripple effects without hitting you over the head with it. It’s a clear message that makes the audience look at misogyny through a lens they may not have seen it through before.
Cregger has now had three successes under his belt. Weapons became an even bigger hit than Barbarian and Resident Evil will likely clear Barbarian’s total gross during its opening weekend. It’s a success that’s well-deserved and it all goes back to his first horror film that played with the audiences expectations to craft one of the most original horror films of the last few years.
Resident Evil is now playing in theaters nationwide.
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