I recently made a decision to start watching more horror movies.
What do you say?
Well I realized that out of all the movie genres, I probably watched the least horror genre – although I still saw a good amount.
For one reason or another, I haven’t seen a lot of horror films in general as classics.
I also didn’t get scared by the movie very well. When I got older, I realized that for me, movies don’t seem scary anymore.
They can be really suspenseful or suspenseful, but for the longest time, not a really good horror movie that doesn’t just rely on jump scares to shock the audience.
So, for all these reasons, I went to HBO Max and Netflix to add to my solid collection of all the good horror movies that these platforms had to slowly tear away from my peers.
And by “good” I mean well reviewed, popular or innovative in some way.
Although it was not the first time I looked at my recently created catalog (that honor goes to “Sinister”), today I will talk about the 2022 “Barbaric”.
This was one thing that one of my roommates said he had heard good things about while we were watching the book on HBO Max. Then a few days ago, after watching six, we decided to watch it, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.
It wasn’t super scary I’d say – so I haven’t made it a point to find a real scary movie just yet.
I didn’t find it super exciting, either. But what is lacking in all the castles, it more than makes up for in solid things and manners.
I think the strength of the film lies in its knee-jerk, especially well-done meshing of horror and comedy.
Justin Long was the highlight of the movie for me, and I found his character to be hilarious.
It’s really great to see the guy who starred in “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” nearly 20 years ago still taking part and turning down the acting chops.
He really sinks into his role as a proud, cowardly and contentious former actor – almost like he was in “This is the End” all the famous versions of himself were growing up.
This is a far cry from the typical nice guy Long usually plays. However, he really proved that he is a great actor in this movie.
Lead actress Georgina Campbell did a good job as well, but I found her character a little less memorable than the others.
As a result, with the comedy aspect of the film, I think the self-aware part made it enjoyable.
Vigilant spoiler: There is a naked and disfigured woman lurking in the cellar who haunts the inhabitants of the house. But what makes this scenario great is how the characters fit into this terrible situation.
They hardly, but apparently, recognize how ridiculous the whole trial is. Then, once the story has been cast on its better side, they heartily acknowledge how odd it is as well.
For me, this was a real breath of fresh air and was similar to other horror comedies, such as “The Evil Dead” or “Cabin in the Woods.”
Speaking of the better side of the story, the flashback scene depicting the house of the first lady praying to the women was also a movie of the movie.
Especially when this sequence was shot, it was honestly incredible how dreamy and depositional the cinematographer could make this part of the story seem.
It was still trippy, and if it was like the whole movie, I wouldn’t really have any complaints (although it might have taken away from the novelty).
Side note: The actor who plays this character, Richard Brake, was fantastic. The hair always takes on this role and is perfectly cast.
The opportunity for the desert area of Detroit was also very effective for me and it could not be as cliché as a shady house.
I will say that what this movie does wrong is that it doesn’t allow much tension to build before revealing what’s actually in the room.
I saw a speech a while ago explaining how I feel about this perfectly by the great Alfred Hitchcock.
“There is no fear in the noise, but in the expectation of it.”
In other words, whatever monster or ghost is the scariest part of the movie, we don’t look scary more than once.
What’s scary is the expectation of seeing whatever monster is lurking in the shadows, and this is a mistake that I think filmmakers make a lot of the time.
And this unfortunate mistake was also made in this movie, which really took away a lot of the suspense and terror that could have been – which is why for me this movie was not that scary or suspenseful.
Was it really that amazing of a horror movie? No. Was it super scary? Nor
Was it still an interesting, original and eccentric piece of art? forks
Fortunately, all the other “barbarian” qualities were more than enough to make up for what he lacked in total scariness.
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