Film review: Barbarian (2022)

This is a twisty one. First thing to know is that it's a horror film, so don't watch it if you're of faint of heart (or stomach). The second thing to know is that its chief virtue is that it keeps surprising you, so I won't say too much. It starts with a woman showing up at night to an Air BnB in a part of Detroit (that you can't see because it's dark) only to find that it's been double-booked, and a slightly sinister-looking man (like her, he appears to be in his late 20s) is already there. Everything is overlaid with tension, and it seems very likely that this man, who is desperately trying to convince her that he's harmless, is actually lying about everything and planning to do something terrible to her. However (very implausibly) it turns out that every hotel she calls up has no vacancies and he says it's because there's a big convention in town. And the man, whose name is Keith (hers is Jess) does a good enough job of convincing her that when she takes the bedroom and he takes the couch, she doesn't lock the door. And then, cut to the middle of the night, and her door is open, and she thinks she hears someone whispering. Was it Keith? No, he's making whimpering noises on the couch, apparently having night terrors, and is very disorientated and annoyed when she shakes him awake. Next morning she wakes up late and finds him gone for the day having left a note saying he'll see her again tonight. She then sets off for the interview that was the reason for her booking the Air BnB in the first place, and at that point she discovers how truly scary and derelict the neighborhood is (it is Brightmoor, so this is realistic).  Well, the interview (with a documentary-maker - of whom Keith had heard, part of what warmed Jess to him) goes well, and she returns to the Air BnB.  But as she's walking from her car to the door, a very scary homeless-looking man comes running towards her, yelling.  She darts inside and is very rattled.  It doesn't help that there's no toilet paper on the roll.  As she waits for Keith to make it safe for her to go back to her car, she decides to look for toilet paper in the basement.  While down there, she finds a strange rope coming out of the wall.  She gives it a tug and... the movie takes the first of its turns.  So, the film starts out looking like it's going to turn into something like Room, and I'm not saying that there aren't elements of that, but by the end you will have witnessed things that wouldn't be out of place in a Sam Raimi film (before he went mainstream).  And you're not introduced to one of the main characters in the movie until a good 40 minutes in.  Can I recommend it?  Well, for a certain kind of viewer, certainly.  If you are not upset by horror movies and you like being surprised, well, this is certainly for you.  If you're tired of tropes and always being able to tell where a film is going, well, you won't with this one!  And while it's definitely intense, and has some dark themes, by the last 15 minutes it's doing such preposterous things that you can't be too upset.  It's well-acted and there are absolute (intentional) laugh-out-loud moments mixed in with some real "Jesus Christ!" moments. And, like all good fiction, the bad end unhappily, and while I wouldn't say the good end happily, the one person you want to survive does just make it.