A nasty, twisty horror ride that starts as a simple Airbnb nightmare and keeps mutating into something darker, funnier, and more grotesque. It’s best when you go in cold and let the film keep pulling the floor out from under you.
Barbarian
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Horror · Mystery
Thu · 1h 43m
Director: Zach Cregger
Starring: Georgina Campbell, Justin Long, Bill Skarsgård
Overview
In town for a job interview, a young woman arrives at her Airbnb late at night only to find that it has been mistakenly double-booked and a strange man is already staying there. Against her better judgement, she decides to stay the night anyway.
Director
Zach Cregger
Cast
Georgina Campbell, Justin Long, Bill Skarsgård
Curator Review
Verdict
A nasty, twisty horror ride that starts as a simple Airbnb nightmare and keeps mutating into something darker, funnier, and more grotesque. It’s best when you go in cold and let the film keep pulling the floor out from under you.
Best for
Viewers who like horror that keeps changing shape
People who enjoy dark comedy mixed with dread
Fans of surprise-heavy genre movies
Audiences who don’t mind gross-out imagery and extreme discomfort
Skip if
You want a straightforward, spoiler-light thriller with a consistent tone
You dislike body horror, nudity, and sudden shocks
You prefer polished prestige horror over messy, chaotic genre swings
You need every plot turn to feel fully earned in a realistic way
Overview
Barbarian begins with a premise so ordinary it feels almost rude: a double-booked rental, a late arrival, and a stranger in the house. From there it keeps opening trapdoors. Zach Cregger uses that setup to build real tension, then repeatedly sabotages your expectations with tonal pivots that are funny, mean, and genuinely unsettling.
Worth noting
What makes it work is the confidence of the filmmaking. The movie knows when to linger, when to withhold, and when to lunge. It’s also unusually alert to the ugliness underneath modern convenience culture, turning a bad booking into a nightmare about trust, entitlement, and the hidden rot beneath a neighborhood.
Bottom line
The result is a crowd-pleasing horror film with a nasty streak. Some viewers will love the audacity more than the logic, but if you want a movie that keeps escalating in ways you cannot predict, this is exactly the kind of chaos worth booking into.
Top Letterboxd reviews
max ivanov (5★) · 44258 likes
you can’t spell barbarian without airbnb
clem (4★) · 28806 likes
damn u can’t have shit in detroit 😭😭😭😭
adambolt (4★) · 19116 likes
2022 horror needs to chill with the naked old people
cherry (4★) · 18265 likes
I see Bill Skarsgård ➡️ he creeps me out ➡️ I want to have sex with him
Chad Trim (4.5★) · 16740 likes
A fun story about how we’re still dealing with the sins of Regan’s America
Themes
Airbnb and rental anxiety, Hidden spaces and secret architecture, Survival horror, Dark comedy, Social rot beneath civility, Gendered fear and vulnerability, Body horror, Twisty narrative structure
Topics
horror, mystery, dark comedy, body horror, home invasion, survival, twists, urban decay, anxiety, 2020s