Barbarian (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A woman staying at an Airbnb discovers that the house she has rented is not what it seems.

Directed by Zach Cregger. Starring Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgard, and Justin Long.

Without giving too much away, Barbarian is a story told in a few separate portions about a house in an especially rundown area of Detroit that has Weird Things happening in the basement. This was one of the horror movies that was suddenly getting VERY talked about, so I perhaps had slightly higher expectations going into it than I should have. That makes it sound like it's a bad movie, but it absolutely isn't -- but it's just a very good horror movie, rather than the something groundbreaking I thought it might be. But that's not a real complaint -- I'm quite happy with a good horror movie! It sets up an interesting grouping of characters to be dealing with the evil house, and it's got some great scares, capturing both effective jump-scares and moody tension-building. I also love how it keeps twisting away from the movie you think it's telling. It cuts just when you least expect it to and then all of a sudden you're getting a completely different angle on the story, and then somehow it all fits together at the end. Definitely worth a watch!

How it entered my Flickchart:

Barbarian > Vampyr

Barbarian > Kuroneko

Barbarian < The White Tiger

Barbarian < Raya and the Last Dragon

Barbarian > Is It College Yet?

Barbarian < A Matter of Life and Death

Barbarian < Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Barbarian < Beetlejuice

Barbarian < We're Not Married!

Barbarian < Kismet

Barbarian > Judas and the Black Messiah

Barbarian < City Lights

Final spot: #816 out of 3739, or 78%.