This Review is Barbaric (slight clickbait)

Let me start off by saying this movie was not my choice. I love good horror movies, but I wasn’t sold on this movie from the description. My friends, in order to decide if this would be a good movie to watch, turned on the trailer. Needless to say, we were sold after watching it.

Barbarian has an interesting trailer. In fact, I recommend you watch it for yourself here. After watching it, I can assume you know why we immediately hit play. Barbarian was certainly an interesting movie; I can’t decide if I like it. My friends and I all agree that this movie was definitely something. These thoughts are why I thought it would be fun to review this movie; it’s not that good, but yet not that bad.

But before I accidentally spoil anything, let’s start the review!

Characters:

Tess is the main protagonist of Barbarian. From the very beginning of the film she gives off ‘final girl energy.’ Essentially that she is smart enough to survive but stupid enough to get into the mess in the first place. Despite not always making the best decisions, Tess is tough and tries to survive. She also is good at gaining audience sympathy; I wanted her to live. Tess is a good example of what a classic horror movie protagonist looks like.

An interesting factor of Tess’s character is that she is painfully unaware what genre of movie she is in until it’s too late. In horror movies characters never actually know what movie they’re in, but they at least figure out they are in trouble relativity soon. Tess, instead, took her sweet time to realize she was in danger. This goes back to my main complaint with Tess’s character; I just wish they would have given her some common sense.

Keith is another main character in Barbarian. I’m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed by Keith’s character. I mean he is literally played by Bill Skarsgard, so I was expecting at least something. Rather his character to me was boring, mildly creepy (in a cringy way, not a horror way), and lacking in common sense. Just like Tess, he made very questionable decisions. Decisions that may or may not have had me yelling at the TV.  Keith was a let-down character and a waste of the talents of Bill Skarsgard.

The other important character in this movie is AJ, played by Justin Long. One word to describe his character is douche. He is a modern day jerk (in appropriate terms). The first 20 minutes he was on screen, I was grieving. For those that don’t know, Justin Long was in a movie called He’s Just Not That Into You, which is a really good movie with Justin Long playing a great character. So I had to watch ‘pen guy’ go from a great rom-com love interest to a complete douche. It was incredibly sad, but at least Justin Long can say he has range. Anyway, if it wasn’t obvious I did not enjoy AJ. Which was what was meant to happen, so I will give the writers a point for that.

Overall these characters are basic, boring, and overdone. They don’t have anything special to them and I never felt attached to them. They were just mediocre.

For characters I give Barbarian a 6/10.

Plot:

When I watch a horror movie, I don’t just want to be scared. I want a story behind the things happening, like a good story that actually makes sense and wasn’t lazily written. Barbarian felt like a lazy written story. Yes, the story was there. Yes, the story itself was creepy and gave horror movie vibes. But the writers took a basic plot and never expanded on it. They kept everything simple and boring. There were so many ways that the plot could have thickened and sometimes it was even hinted at. Yet, it never did.

Not only was the plot basic, but the fear factors weren’t even that good. I was never actually scared during this movie. Again, this premise had potential, but they stuck with the easy plan and ended up creating a mediocre movie. Essentially, it was just okay.

For plot I give Barbarian a 4/10.

Enjoyment:

This was a mediocre movie and none of it was memorable. However, I did surprisingly enjoy watching it. Barbarian is one of those movies that are perfect to watch with friends and laugh about. There are so many funny parts, like the beginning where it feels more like a Hallmark than a horror movie. We all enjoyed yelling at the TV when characters made questionable decisions or cringing when weird things happened. At some parts we almost felt trauma bonded. The movie itself wasn’t really enjoyable, but watching with people was.

However, I would never watch this by myself. Honestly, I will probably never watch this movie again, but the first experience was a good time.

For enjoyment I rate Barbarian a 7/10 because I love making commentary about movies with friends, and this one is perfect to do that.

Final Score:

The final score for Barbarian is a 17/30 (yikes).

If this review still makes you want to watch this because you love horror movies. Or if you want to make fun of characters in a movie, go to their IMDB page to learn more!