Barbarian

This film was recommended to me by my brother, so I had high hopes — but it turns out I haven’t seen such a messed up movie in a while. And not in a good way.

I’ll start with the positives: the first 43 minutes are really good. An interesting premise, unusual camerawork, a tense atmosphere, solid acting — and it all ends with a genuine surprise. The idea of a woman staying alone in a new town in a house with a random man who somehow also rented it is genuinely terrifying, even without jump-scares, blood or any of the usual horror tricks.

From 43 minutes to 1 hour 11 minutes — highly questionable, but manageable.

Everything after that is just nonsense, and in places, horrific cringe. I’m sorry (but not sorry) to any fans of this film. The stupidest part is that the film doesn’t answer most of its important questions, has major inconsistencies, and just keeps adding more questions on top of the existing ones.

Who was renting out this house on Airbnb? Why? Has this been going on for years? If so, why hasn’t anyone responded to the missing persons reports? Why aren’t the police doing anything? How did the owner not notice what was happening in his own house for over 40 years? And so on.

The third act is essentially violence for the sake of violence — blood and gore purely for spectacle and nothing more. The tense atmosphere completely disappears and everything becomes painfully obvious and crude.

Some scenes were so ridiculous I wanted to scream.

Yes, I understand the core idea — that something terrifying can hide behind a beautiful suburban façade. Fine. But that doesn’t justify how it was all executed.

I’m genuinely shocked this film gets such high ratings across most platforms when there are far better horror films out there. I have no idea why audiences and critics rate it so highly.

If I’d known what was coming, I would have stopped after 43 minutes to avoid the disappointment. But since I did finish it — 5/10. If I were to recommend anything, it would be strictly the first 43 minutes, which account for roughly half the rating. After that, I’d suggest you just look up how it ends rather than sit through what the creators made of it. But that’s just my humble opinion.