Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
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.
Barbarian is a genuinely inventive horror film that subverts expectations at nearly every turn — its structure, tonal shifts, and willingness to re-center the narrative on an entirely different protagonist mid-film make it a standout in modern horror. The plot earns a high mark for its layered, escalating reveals and clever use of the Airbnb premise as a lens for paranoia and buried horrors. Novelty is similarly high; the film has a singular, unpredictable voice that feels fresh in a crowded genre. Acting is competent but uneven — Georgina Campbell is strong, Justin Long leans into his character well, but supporting performances are inconsistent. Cinematography serves the material with effective dread but doesn't transcend genre conventions. The ending is where the film stumbles most notably — the resolution feels rushed and somewhat anticlimactic given the ambitious buildup, undercutting the tension it had carefully constructed.