Barbarian
Jord watched this in 2022 when it came out with Austin and didn’t love it, so E and I didn’t race to put it on our Spooktober horror watchlist, but after Zach Creggers’ masterstroke of Weapons, our curiosity was piqued, and it was definitely worth the watch. This is much simpler mystery to unravel compared to Weapons and the payoff wasn’t as satisfying, but you can definitely see Cregger was working towards something that is realized better in Weapons. When the humor comes in this, it’s definitely more stark, but I enjoyed it. It was a nice reprieve of the tension. Certainly some issue with the plot and decisions by the characters, but it makes more sense learning, after the fact, that this script began as a writing experiment in which Cregger wanted to write a story where the protagonist ignored as many red flags as possible. If you enjoy horror, this is a must watch.
-Z
Going in mostly blind (except for a pretty basic trailer) was the right choice here. I was terrified to see this in theaters when it released due to an upcoming stay at an AirBnB, but I’m glad the success of Weapons made Z & I revisit this one. It doesn’t quite blend humor and horror with quite the right mix compared to Weapons (although there are some very funny moments), and a lot of the plot here just left me frustrated (classic horror movie non-logic), but overall, better than I expected it to be!
-E
