Barbarian (2022)

BarbarianTess Marshall is going to a job interview and has booked a house through Airbnb, in a rundown Detroit neighborhood. When arriving there in nearly complete darkness as no other house gives off any light in the nearby area, she finds out someone else is already residing inside the house she booked. The other resident is a young man named Keith, who booked through another site. Thus, that house ended up getting double-booked. Not being able to get in contact with the renter, while also being a little unnerved by this young stranger, Tess finds herself in a situation where she doesn’t quite know what to do. Eventually, she warms a little up to him, and after he insists, she stays the night in the bedroom while he takes the sofa. Things seem to be going well after all. The next morning, Tess goes to her job interview, where the woman who interviews her warns her about the place. Tess doesn’t think much about it, and goes back to the house, and finds that Keith is still out. She goes down to the basement, where she accidentally gets locked inside, and here, Tess stumbles upon a hidden door leading to…somewhere…

 

Barbarian is a horror film directed by Zach Cregger, and it’s also his directorial debut. It stars Bill Skarsgård (as Keith) and Georgina Campbell (as Tess). And the movie’s gotten quite a buzz, which caught our interest, and we noticed that the general consensus seemed to be that it more or less lived up to its hype. So, we Horror Ghouls were eager to check it out, and found it on streaming here in Norway at Disney Plus.

 

The film is starting off with something that seems to be an ordinary thriller, building up certain expectations already during the first few minutes. Then it effectively throws you off guard and presents something else entirely. And I think Barbarian’s major strength lies in just that: not giving you exactly what you expected, and it does that with a high degree of proficiency, engrossing us in the concept of the totally unknown. You don’t really know much about what is happening, you get thrown a couple red herrings here and there, and while expecting a few clichés at certain moments you end up getting the exact opposite of what you might have been anticipating. While none of the plot “twists” are that unique to catch you completely off guard, there’s something about the storytelling that makes it come more unexpected, as it leaves enough room for wonder throughout the story without revealing its cards too early. There’s enough tension and unsettling atmosphere to keep your mind occupied. Viewing it without any knowledge of plot or twists is the best viewing experience for a film like this, so I will not delve into it any further to avoid spoilers that might ruin the movie experience.

 

Barbarian had a budget of 4.5 million, and grossed $45 million worldwide. While the majority of the film takes place in Detroit, and several establishing shots were in fact made there (including all the exterior neighborhood shots which were filmed in Brightmoor) the main filming location was in Bulgaria. Zach Cregger got the idea for this film after reading Gavin de Becker’s book “The Gift of Fear”, which encourages women to trust their intuition when confronted by men that are obviously dangerous. Zack wrote a short inspired by it, and liked it well enough to know he wanted to make a longer film. And, while not credited, Jordan Peele was “an invisible hand” in shaping the eventual story and was also shown an early cut of the film.

 

Overall, Barbarian is a tension-filled horror thriller (although you might find yourself a little underwhelmed if you’ve seen all the hype around it). It is not particularly scary, and some may be put off by the movie’s u-turn after the first act and how it (to be honest) strays a bit from making that much sense all the time, but it has enough creepy atmosphere and will likely keep you second-guessing what is happening if you’ve avoided any spoilers.

 

Barbarian

 

Writer and director: Zach Cregger
Country & year: USA, 2022
Actors: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis, Richard Brake, Kurt Braunohler, Jaymes Butler, Sophie Sörensen, Rachel Fowler, J.R. Esposito, Kate Nichols
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt15791034/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

It Chapter Two (2019)

It Chapter Two (2019)It’s now been 27 years since “The Losers Club” had their first and terrifying encounter with the child-eating entity Pennywise. They have all moved on with their lives, and away from Derry and its awful memories. With the exception of Mike, the only one of them who stayed behind. When Mike starts noticing the tell-tale signs of their enemy being back again from its hibernation, he gives his old friends a phone call. They made a promise 27 years ago…that when It returned, they would get back together and end it once and for all.

 

This is the second and final chapter of IT, where our protagonists have become adults and need to face their worst fear one final time. They travel back to Derry, but their memories are somewhat blurred. Mike is the only one that clearly remembers everything (hinting that once you move away from Derry, so will It’s hold on you weaken). The story travels a little back and forth, with scenes of the gang as their younger selves, but mainly as the adults they’ve become who must face the terrors of Pennywise and figure out a way to beat It.

 

Bill Skarsgård is clowning around like never before, and keeps his performance top-notch. Just like the first chapter, scares are still packed in with a bit of a chuckle, and the part where Beverly is visiting her father’s old apartment to find an old lady residing there instead, builds up in such a fantastic and creepy way. There is also an excellent head-spider scene, where Richie exclaims “You’ve got to be fucking kidding“, referencing John Carpenter’s The Thing. In the original mini-series, there’s a scene where “The Losers Club” sees It as a giant arachnid creature, which was also partly revealed in one of Pennywise’s forms in the first chapter. I don’t suppose it’s much of a spoiler then to say that there will be an arachnid version in this movie as well, but at least more clownish than the original!

 

Some things from the book have been completely stripped away, or made insignificant to the story. Like Bev’s violent husband, who in the book becomes It’s puppet. And the affair between Bill and Bev, which doesn’t evolve at all in the movie. But even though the movie has a run-time of almost 3 hours, there would still be limitations as to what they could include while still being able to finish the story, so leaving out certain things is not only a smart decision, but a required one.

 

Since there were 2 years between the first chapter and this one, some of the child actors had actually grown so much that they had to be digitally de-aged in order to shoot the flashback scenes in this chapter. They also did an excellent job on casting the adult versions of the characters, as they truly do resemble the looks of the child actors. There’s also a lot of “easter eggs” in this movie (as well as in the first). The clowns in the funhouse scene for example, has the looks and resemblance of how Pennywise looked in the first movie adaption, the mini-series from 1990. Stephen King himself also has a small role as the antique owner shop, who is selling Bill’s old bike Silver back to him. Prior to this, Stephen King hasn’t had a cameo since 1996 (in “Thinner”). Even the director, Andy Muschietti, can be seen in the scene where Eddie visits the pharmacy.

 

Chapter two of IT is a solid conclusion to the story, and makes the two chapters a truly entertaining experience. Whether or not this will be Bill Skarsgård’s last performance as the menacing clown remains to be seen, as Bill himself has stated that he would be interested in playing Pennywise again in a potential prequel to King’s book. No matter what will eventually become of that idea, at least we’ve gotten yet another solid adaption of the book itself.

 

It Chapter Two

 

Director: Andy Muschietti
Country & year: USA | Canada, 2019
Actors: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Martell, Wyatt Oleff, Jack Dylan Grazer, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt7349950/

 

Related post: It (2017)

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It (2017)

It (2017)It’s 1989 in Derry, a small Maine town. A group of bullied kids who calls themselves “The Losers Club” experience frightening things when a creepy clown named Pennywise starts terrorizing the little town. Children go missing, and the kids band together in the hopes of destroying the creature.

 

Based on Stephen King’s monster of a book, IT, this first chapter of an installment of two movies in total follows the original story in certain parts while also adding something new to the mix. The book has been on the screen before, in the TV mini-series from 1990 (starring Tim Curry as Pennywise). Now, as many readers of Stephen King’s work are well aware of, some of his stuff is pretty hard to translate from written text to the screen… and IT is no exception in that regard. The original story contains a lot of stuff that is outright weird (and even some things that would probably not be “acceptable” to include in a Hollywood movie, even by today’s standards). Many readers and fans of the book might feel disappointed by a lack of some things they may have loved, like for example Maturin the Turtle, a character that was left out in both adaptions. Then again, there are those of us that have both read the book and still enjoy both movie adaptions on their own.

 

Now, one of the strongest qualities of this movie is the performances by quite a well-chosen cast. The actors are doing a terrific job in every scene they’re in, and Bill Skarsgård’s performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown is nothing but stellar. Like in the book, one major part is the bonding between the kids, something that is also being focused well on in the film. The members of “The Losers Club” not only has to face the horrifying shape-shifting entity, but also the bully Henry Bowers and his gang, which adds additional suspense. The history of Derry is rather rich on detail, and as our protagonists delve further into the backstory and origins of the feared clown they’re both hunting and are being hunted by, we get some insight into It’s long-lasting reign of terror. It is coming out of hibernation every 27 years to feast, repeating the cycle over and over.

 

When the kids experience the frightening visions caused by the entity, who uses their worst fears against them to scare the living daylights out of them, it’s always a pleasant experience with a mix of straight-out horror and even some comedic parts. It’s fun and it’s scary at the same time. The film has been criticized for being heavy in CGI usage, and while there are some scenes that are not exactly top-notch in that department (like when Georgie is getting his arm chewed off), there’s also some scenes that works pretty well. Also, the scenes where Pennywise’s eyes are pointing in different directions is actually a trick Bill Skarsgård is doing all by himself.

 

Today’s audience will probably automatically draw parallels to Stranger Things (and that series actually includes a major role by Finn Wolfhard, who’s playing Richie in IT), which is also set in the 80’s and features a group of kids battling supernatural forces. In the recent years, we’ve had quite a lot of “kids grouping together to fight scary things”, also including the excellent “Summer of 84” which has a pretty ballsy ending (review coming on Horror Ghouls later!). However, with IT being a story from 1986, with an earlier movie adaption in 1990, it’s got a different fanbase that is not sold mainly on 80’s nostalgia, but rather on the story itself and the iconic Pennywise. It’s a fun ride and a very good adaption, despite not being able to grasp at every single subject from the original story (which would, in my honest opinion, not really be possible without making it a total mess anyway).

 

It

 

Director: Andy Muschietti
Country & year: USA | Canada, 2017
Actors: Jaeden Martell, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hamilton, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, Stephen Bogaert
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1396484/

 

Related post: It Chapter Two (2019)

 

 

Vanja Ghoul