‘Barbarian’: Building a Mystery

Horror and mystery stories have a lot in common, and Barbarian is a great example.

NEW STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This newsletter aggressively spoils things.

I do love the new trend in horror movies where characters absolutely say NOPE to entering creepy secret tunnels and such.

I’m what scientists call a sucker for any horror movie made in the last 40 years or so¹. Older than that and the tropes, pacing, and effects get a bit out of my tempo², but if it’s relatively modern and gets even a hint of good reviews or word of mouth, I am there. Often this results in sadness and regret, but sometimes it leads me to films like Barbarian, which is excellent.

There are a lot of layers to Barbarian. Like a lot of great horror, it drafts off of the current zeitgeist³, but it’s also filled with terrific detail and subtle observations, solid performances, and some truly scary moments. Barbarian begins with the story of Tess (Georgina Campbell), who arrives at her Airbnb in a sketchy neighborhood in Detroit on a rainy night only to discover that it’s been double-booked: A guy named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already in there⁴. Tess is freaked out, Keith is irritated—but when they both ascertain that this is, in fact, a fuckup and not either one’s fault, Keith makes the offer to share the place. Tess is still not comfortable with a strange man, but she doesn’t have a lot of options, so she accepts. They eventually relax with a bottle of wine and enjoy each other’s company.

Then, shit gets weird⁵. The next day Tess accidentally locks herself in the basement, discovers a hidden door that leads to a short hallway and what looks very, very much like a rape room⁶. When Keith returns he sets her free, but he refuses to believe what she’s seen and insists on checking it out for himself. When he doesn’t come back, Tess goes looking for him, discovers another hidden doorway that leads to a terrifyingly deep staircase and a whole network of tunnels, finds Keith ... and something else.

And this is all setup! The film then cuts to a new character, AJ, played by Justin Long. It takes a bit to tie everything together. It does this very well, because Barbarian understands that horror stories are essentially mysteries that end very, very badly⁷.

The Clues

We must resist the Skarsgårdization of our universe. There are just too many of them.

Horror and mystery overlap a lot. Freaky shit happens, people turn detective to try and figure out what’s going on. The difference is that horror often shows the futility of solving mysteries—the way they often show us stuff we’d rather not see. It’s a question of optimism: Mystery stories propose that discovering the truth makes things better. Horror proposes the exact opposite⁸.

Barbarian makes this connection obvious. Tess, after a freaky incident the night before that saw her waking up to find the door to her bedroom open, attacks the problem of being locked in the basement with detective-style energy. She inspects the space, seeks out tools to help her, and when she encounters the strange hidden passage she assembles a Rube Goldbergian mechanism to light it up for safer exploration using a mirror propped up to reflect the light in the main basement.

The viewer, as always, is also a detective. Tess’s terrifying journey deeper into the catacombs under the house presents us with snatches of information: Rusty cages, a sense of hugeness, a lot of tunnels⁹.

And then we cut to AJ’s section, and the film’s themes become clearer as AJ is thrust into the role of detective even more obviously. AJ is an actor on the cusp of his big break when he’s credibly accused of rape by his costar. With his life and finances in shambles, he has to liquidate his properties in Detroit, including the house Tess and Keith have recently discovered is a horrifying hellhole. When he arrives to check the place out, he slowly comes to realize that something’s off. Tess and Keith’s stuff is still there, Tess’s car is parked outside, the basement door is propped open.

AJ becomes a detective. The role of the audience and the actor is reversed: We know what it all means as he finds what Tess has left behind: The propped-up mirror, the hidden doors. But AJ goes through the house as if he’s watching the film, encountering all the weird clues and trying to figure out what’s going on—at least until he discovers the rape room and becomes obsessed with how much extra value all that terrifying square footage is going to bring to his house.

The Lens

This replicates my own facial expression the first time The Mother shows up in this movie.

Barbarian is also a film that demonstrates how important the lens is when viewing a story. AJ’s delight in discovering a rape/murder complex under his house because of what it might mean for his property values stems from his position as one of the barbarians, a man who destroys everything in his path without much concern for the collateral damage¹⁰. The film makes it clear that AJ isn’t merely accused—he is a rapist—and the character even dances up to the line of recognizing how awful he is. Of course AJ is unconcerned about the rape room, he’s far too selfish and self-absorbed to worry over someone else’s theoretical suffering. For AJ, all the clues surrounding Tess and Keith’s trauma are really just clues regarding the assholes who left his property in a state of disorder.

For Tess, of course, the horror stems from her sense of vulnerability. When she first arrives at the house, she’s hesitant to put herself in a position where Keith might hurt her, because she has to think about that¹¹. Keith is focused entirely on the inconvenience, and even though he’s ultimately shown to not be a terrible person he offers Tess several microaggressions that make her uneasy, largely without realizing it. His petulant commentary on her distrust of him coupled with his hesitation to leave the bedroom after their icebreaking conversation and shared bottle of wine give Keith just the slightest edge of Nice Guy danger. Keith, the audience (and Tess) senses, might not be truly dangerous, but you can easily glimpse a scenario where he gets pissed off and suddenly leans into AJ territory. That’s why Tess is so freaked out when she wakes up to find her door open. Consider he next day when Keith literally does save Tess from a bad situation—but then not only refuses to take her word for what she’s seen under the house, but aggressively insists that she stay and wait for him to see for himself. When Tess is trying to push past him and he keeps physically blocking her, it’s unsettling even if he means well.

So Tess’s lens is obviously her vulnerability and the constant threat of male violence that seems to always lurk, even behind seemingly normal, nice guys. For Keith, it’s slightly more complicated. Similarly to AJ, Keith’s male privilege means the clues don’t worry him much¹². He assumes he’ll be able to handle whatever happens. This is presaged early in the film when a tipsy Tess, feeling safe once she’s gotten to know Keith a little, pointedly asks him if he would have hesitated to stay in the house if he’d arrived to find her already there. Of course the answer is no—because Keith can’t imagine any scenario where he would be in danger¹³. He doesn’t even see the mystery around him, which, like AJ, dooms him. The fact that it’s this sense of invulnerability that eventually traps Tess in a terrifying situation just underscores how her entire existence is affected by male privilege.

As a homeowner with a creepy crawlspace under his house, I am comforted by the fact that I myself am so comfortable in my masculinity that there is no way I would ever enter a secret tunnel should I discover one. I’ll send my wife The Duchess in. She’s much tougher than me.

Next week: The best part of Nope got short shrift.

1. Also a sucker more generally. For example, my Nigerian investments should make me into a trillionaire any day now. And yet even I knew crypto was a scam.

2. The editing in films made before 1970 or so is glacial. That doesn’t make it bad, but it does mean I often wander away in the middle of scenes, make a sandwich, and return to find the same scene still plodding along. This is why Youtube videos can be watched at 2x speed.

3. Not least of which is the absolute horror of being forced to share space with someone.

4. Skarsgård has the rare ability to appear either totally charming and boyish or completely alien and off-putting without any makeup whatsoever. I imagine his friends have weird moments when they glance at him while out at a restaurant or something and for a split second he looks like he’s about to unhinge his jaw and consume them.

5. This story hit me extra hard because I personally regard sleeping in someone else’s house to be a horrifying ordeal. I gladly pay fortunes in hotel fees to avoid staying over anyone’s house. I don’t care how cheerful you are or how great a breakfast you serve in the morning, lying there smelling your home’s unfamiliar smells is awful.

6. It’s sad that we all know exactly what a Rape Room looks like.

7. Unlike all those murder mysteries that end really, really well.

8. I propose that it’s really just a lot of work. I am that guy who discovers a secret tunnel in his Airbnb and goes back to bed, wakes up the next day and forgets to mention it in his review.

9. Am I the only one who, when secret homemade murder tunnels are discovered in serial killer homes, worries about the quality of construction? Companies spend billions to dig mines that then collapse. I’m supposed to believe The MouthBreathing Murderer crafted miles of tunnels using a spoon and duct tape and it’s still intact forty years later?

10. It’s me. Hi! I’m the problem, it’s me. Lyrics have never hit me quite so hard.

11. Also, Keith is played by Bill Skarsgård. I would hesitate to lock eyes with that man across a crowded room, much less sleep in the same house with him. Have you seen IT, for the love of dog?

12. I get this, as I would be that guy cheerfully investigating things like a pile of old bones, bleeding walls, and a room full of bees and never once considering the possibility that I am about to be eaten by demons simply because I’m a guy.

13. Of course, now I’m married to The Duchess, aka the most dangerous woman alive, and I know better: If it is my fate to be murdered in this life, it will definitely be at the hands of a woman.