In Barbarian, which just hit Hulu, writer and director Zach Cregger brings together two very different protagonists for a confidently perverse take on home invasion horror. Our main hero is Tess (Georgina Campbell), a young woman who travels to Detroit for a job interview. Things get off to a bad start when she learns her Airbnb is double-booked, forcing her to choose between two undesirable options. Does she risk sharing the house with a strange man (Bill Skarsgård), or should she try to sleep in her car?
She ultimately ventures indoors, where the guy, Keith, turns out to be harmless, making Skarsgård’s casting a self-aware red herring (after all, we’re not used to seeing him play a normal, likable dude). But then a different brand of horror emerges. After accidentally locking herself in the basement, Tess discovers a door leading to a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Terrified, she informs Keith, who decides to explore but doesn’t return. When Tess goes back to look for him, the film unleashes a deliciously unexpected jumpscare: a naked, unkempt woman emerges from the gloom, smashing Keith’s skull to a pulp and imprisoning Tess.
Arriving halfway through the film, this scene transforms Barbarian from a psychological thriller into something much more gruesome. Then, turning on a dime, we cut to a new and radically different co-protagonist.
From his very first minute onscreen, driving along a sunny shoreline in a red convertible, Justin Long’s AJ is gratingly obnoxious. Best known for comedic and nerdy roles (Galaxy Quest, Idiocracy), it’s a bold departure from Long’s mainstream image. AJ is arrogant and misogynistic, played with a conviction that elevates the film from good to great. Soon enough, we’re rooting for AJ to bite it.
AJ’s introduction reveals that he’s an actor facing a high-profile rape accusation, and that he’s also the absentee landlord of Tess’s Airbnb. He’ll eventually wind up in those hidden tunnels too, being chased around by the monstrous woman known only as Mother (a heavily made-up Matthew Patrick Davis). But before that, the film establishes him as a comically loathsome douchebag, disrupting our expectations for a typical horror protagonist.
As a vulnerable woman trying to escape a deadly situation, Tess is a conventional final girl. We sympathize with her healthy survival instincts, and we groan when she’s forced into increasingly torturous circumstances. Blinkered by whiny egomania, AJ is her opposite. Whether he’s dealing with mortal peril or self-inflicted career setbacks, he’s incapable of comprehending that he’s in genuine danger.
Justin Long and director Zach Cregger both started in comedy, and both understand the overlap between humor and horror, peppering AJ’s screentime with moments of dark absurdity. After finding Tess’s laptop and failing to guess the password, he simply tosses the whole computer over his shoulder like trash. Later, when he discovers the tunnels, he doesn’t exhibit an ounce of fear or concern. Instead, we cut to him googling, “CAN UNDERGROUND ROOMS BE LISTED AS SQUARE FOOTAGE,” convinced he can squeeze some extra cash from the murder maze under his property.
Despite the B-movie trashiness of Barbarian’s main plot — an ugly tale of incest and gore, including a scene where Mother forcibly breastfeeds AJ — the movie makes some trenchant observations about the everyday dangers women face. Tess’s relatability is rooted in her realistic fear and caution as a young woman alone in a strange location. We understand why she’s disturbed by warning signs that male characters dismiss as harmless. In contrast, AJ is a bastion of callous, self-absorbed male privilege.
When we finally learn Mother’s backstory, AJ’s reaction is very telling. An unexpectedly sympathetic figure, Mother turns out to be the incestuous offspring of Frank (Richard Brake), who spent decades kidnapping and impregnating women, building a grotesque warren beneath his suburban home. When AJ finds Frank in the tunnels and uncovers his crimes, he’s disgusted. He clearly perceives Frank as a “real” rapist, subconsciously putting him in a different category from AJ himself.
Yet this experience shakes something loose in AJ’s flimsy moral core. He has a brief come-to-Jesus moment, questioning whether he’s “a good person.” He and Tess escape the tunnels, but AJ reverts to his self-serving ways as Mother pursues them to a derelict building. What comes next is a surprisingly gory twist worth discovering for yourself.
Barbarian isn’t Long’s first horror role. He appeared in Jeepers Creepers (2001) and Drag Me To Hell (2009), and starred in Kevin Smith’s Tusk (2014) before his recent pivot to lower-budget horror. But Barbarian’s AJ stands out because he’s such an enthusiastic rebellion against expectations. A familiar supporting actor for over two decades, Long made his name playing dweebs, dorks, and nice guys. It’s invigorating to see him play such an unrepentant asshole, a role crucial to Barbarian’s success as an underrecognized gem of post-MeToo cinema.
While movies like Promising Young Woman and Blink Twice make more overt feminist statements, Barbarian’s jumpscares and gross-out moments disguise serious themes. With Mother ultimately revealed to be a victim herself, AJ is the socially acceptable face of rape culture, profiting from the house that caused generations of women untold pain.
Barbarian is now streaming on Hulu.
