Looking for the best horror movie to watch before Halloween? Zach Cregger’s viral hit Barbarian is leaving streaming services, so watch it while you can.
Anyone trying to market a movie these days is facing an uphill battle. The 2020 COVID slump aside, the number of films coming out every year has seen a sharp, steady growth every year since the 2000s, and with streaming platforms giving viewers more options than ever about where and when to watch movies, the audience for any given release has splintered dramatically, making it harder and harder for smaller movies to find traction. Positive, enthusiastic, organic word of mouth remains one of the best ways for any movie to find its audience — but true word-of-mouth hits have become fairly rare. And then there’s 2022’s Barbarian.
Marketing for Zach Cregger’s high-concept horror movie was built around secrecy, with an initial trailer that only broadly hints at where the story goes — it’s clear that it’s a scary film about Something Bad Happening, but the actual horror subgenre and the direction for the plot are left purposefully unclear. That sense of anticipation and uncertainty are something every horror film needs, though only a few of them get, especially the franchise entries where every beat is expected in advance. And Cregger took full advantage of it, by building so much tension into different aspects of the narrative that it isn’t clear which one will be the trigger until the trap springs shut on the audience.
Georgina Campbell (Bird Box Barcelona) stars as Tess, a woman visiting Detroit for a high-stakes job interview. When she arrives at her Airbnb, though, there’s already a man in residence — Keith (Bill Skarsgård), who claims he booked the house for the same period of time, on another website. His story checks out, and he’s obviously aware of Tess’ nervousness about sharing living space with a strange man. But late at night, in a sketchy neighborhood during a blinding rainstorm, with all the local hotels booked up for a convention, Tess’ options are limited, and she lets herself be talked into staying the night.
