When Horror Is Actually Unpredictable: A Barbarian Script Analysis

Barbarian is one of the few horror films of recent years that I consider to be an instant classic. The feature horror debut from writer/director Zach Creggar, this film stood out from the crowd by selling itself on fear more than anything. In fact, if my memory serves me right, none of the ads or trailers even showed anything that happens in the film past the twenty-minute mark (and even that was enough to get people to bite). It was original, it was scary, it wasn’t pretentious or overtly ambiguous, and most importantly, it was completely unpredictable (primarily because of its unique act structure and out-of-left-field plot twist near the beginning of the film). There are a million different angles I could have taken with this analysis, as this movie does so much thematically in regards to trauma, misogyny, and abusive gender dynamics in society. But with Halloween coming up, I figured it’d be best not to primarily focus on any single one of these elements, but rather emphasize how they work together to do what all horror movies aim to achieve: scare the audience.

OPENING IMAGE

The film opens with a shot of a small, shitty car pulling in front of a large, spooky house. Inside the car, we find Tess, a young, normal-looking woman who’s clearly out of her element. Right away, tensions are high. It’s night, it’s raining, and our presumably likable protagonist is far from home. 

SET UP

After a quick glance at Tess’s phone, we realize that Tess just arrived in town and is renting the spooky house for the night. However, things aren’t going well for her at all. It’s practically storming now, the lockbox doesn’t have the key to the home, and the homeowner isn’t answering the phone. To make matters worse, this house is in one of the worst neighborhoods in Detroit, so it’s not like Tess can go knocking on the neighbors’ doors for help. 

Then, suddenly, she starts hearing something scary.

INCITING INCIDENT

Just when Tess is about to go running for the hills, the door opens…

Keith proceeds to tell her that he rented the house on HomeAway, while Tess says she rented the place on Airbnb. After both parties prove to the other that they’re not lying, Keith invites Tess inside and out of the rain while they figure it out. Tess is unsure whether or not this is actually better than just staying outside. On one hand, he is non-threatening looking, seems honest, and is pretty polite. On the other hand, he is a stranger (and a man), and she’s a vulnerable woman alone from out of town. After a quick internal debate, she steps inside.

Also, real quick, major props to the casting department. This role was absolutely perfect for Bill Skarsgard. Having just played Pennywise the Clown in the IT reboot franchise, audiences were naturally suspicious of him. However, when he’s not in creepy clown makeup, he’s actually quite handsome. So as we watch this scene unfold, we end up just as conflicted as she is.

DEBATE

Once inside, Tess and Keith attempt to come up with some sort of solution. Tess offers to go sit in her car while she tries to find a hotel, but Keith insists she stay in the house to do all that–it’s dangerous for a woman to be alone out there. If that wasn’t strange enough, he keeps making off-putting remarks. Nothing too alarming, but just enough to keep her (and the audience) on their toes.

Tess proceeds to call various hotels in town to no avail. That’s when Keith conveniently remembers that there’s a convention in town and assures her that she isn’t going to find a room. Finally, he asks what we’ve all been expecting him to ask the entire time…

FUN AND GAMES

After Tess finally agrees to spend the night, she goes about her nighttime routine: showering, brushing her teeth, etc. And when she gets out of the bathroom, she finds Keith waiting for her with a bottle of wine.

Once again, Keith continues to perfectly toe the line between creepy and polite. Still, neither Tess nor the audience can figure out whether or not to trust him. That is, until Tess mentions that she’s in town for a job interview…

Is he being genuine? Or was this the perfect ruse to get her to trust him? Once again, we just don’t know.

CUT TO: Tess and Keith finally drinking that wine together and having a grand old time. Laughter ensues, defenses are lowered, and the night actually becomes somewhat fun. Keith helps her make her bed, goes and lies down on the couch, and that’s it. Tess closes the door and falls asleep. 

Then, in the middle of the night, she wakes up…

It was just Keith having a sleep episode. Classic horror movie fake-out. Nothing to worry about (we think). She goes back to bed.

BREAK INTO TWO

Act 2 begins with Tess waking up the next morning perfectly fine, which tells us that Keith actually wasn’t some sinister monster trying to kill her. Who would have thought that?

With her and the audience's nerves finally calmed, Tess goes about her day before the big interview. During the drive over, she calls someone named Marcus. 

It’s revealed that this Marcus guy is Tess’s boss and secret lover. And if that doesn’t sound complicated enough, he also has a wife and kids. When she mentions the job interview, he feels betrayed and confesses his love to her. She caves and says she loves him, too.

The interview goes well, and Tess returns to the Airbnb feeling a little more relaxed. But the second she steps out of her car, that feeling goes away.

Tess sprints inside and locks herself in. She immediately calls 911, but the operator tells her there aren’t any available units in that area (I’m sure that won’t be relevant later). Luckily, the strange man goes away. That was close.

She sits down on the toilet to go to the bathroom, but notices there isn’t any toilet paper. This prompts her to search the home, leading to a very spooky discovery…

Locked in the room, Tess starts scrambling for anything that can help her get out. She starts throwing things around until she discovers a large rope coming out of the wall. Naturally, she pulls it, opening a secret door.

Despite everything her instincts are telling her, she goes inside.

She runs back up into the basement and discovers Keith has just come back home. She screams for his attention.

Tess tells Keith everything she saw and starts prepping to leave. Having not seen what she saw, he thinks she’s overreacting and wants to see it for himself. She agrees to wait upstairs for a few minutes while he goes down there, and then they both can go to the police together. 

So down he goes. After a few moments, Tess begins to panic and realizes what she has to do.

She fearfully follows his voice, going deeper and deeper into the tunnel, until finally, she finds him…

MIDPOINT

Halfway through the script, we completely shift gears and meet a new character, Cale, as he drives down the sunny Highway 1 in Malibu, CA. Just when we thought we sorta knew where this script was going, Creggar hits us with yet another 180.

It’s revealed that Cale is an actor and expects this call to be good news regarding a TV show he’s been cast in. But contrary to his expectations, the call is actually regarding a serious allegation made against him.

His agents go on to explain that his co-star is accusing him of rape.

BAD TO WORSE

Cale’s in serious trouble now. He’s getting sued, has no work, and is losing money at a rapid pace. His financial advisor mentions needing to liquidate some assets, including some properties he owns in Michigan. So, with nowhere else to go, he flies to Detroit.

Turns out, Cale owns the Barbary house. He picks up the keys from the rental property and makes his way over to the house. When he gets there, he notices Tess’s car parked out front.

He goes inside and finds Tess’s and Keith’s things, along with the basement door open. What the fuck is going on here?

Suddenly, he gets a call from a hometown friend and decides to meet up with him for drinks. The mystery can wait.

Okay, he definitely did the things he’s accused of. At least now we know not to cheer him on.

The next morning, he finally decides to investigate whatever happened before he got there. He starts by going through all of Tess’s and Keith’s belongings, but quickly moves on to the mysterious basement.

When he encounters the secret tunnels and rooms, fear is the last thing on his mind. He assumes that he can include this space in the square footage when selling the property and cheerfully explores the area with a tape measure. 

He ignorantly pivots around every source of a potential threat (the bed, blood-stained walls, kennel cages) as he measures the length of the floor. Finally, he reaches another secret room within the tunnel system. Here, the warning signs could not be any clearer, and he’s practically forced to acknowledge that something strange is going on.

With a flashlight in his hand, Cale explores further into the tunnel. He hears something moving towards him, but shit, his flashlight goes out. He hits it, and for a split second, he can see the terrifying image of the mysterious WHITE WOMAN crawling towards him. He screams, and the light goes out again. Fuck this. He starts crawling in the opposite direction, checking behind him every couple of paces. He can hear the monster right behind him…and getting closer every second…

Cale falls directly into some sort of makeshift cage. His light turns back on, giving him some vision of the horrible situation he’s found himself in. He looks at his leg and realizes he’s fallen onto the knife. He looks above and sees the White Woman staring down at him from above. She snarls and slams a grated door shut, trapping Cale inside. And as he screams for help, we hear a familiar voice telling him to be quiet…

BREAK INTO THREE

The break into 3 takes us back into the 1970s. We’re at the same house on Barbary Street, but everything’s in way better shape than the last time we saw it. The lawns are green, the houses are painted, and families are living happily in every home on the block. It’s a real neighborhood.

We see a creepy-looking man named Frank exit the home and get into his car. The original owner, perhaps? He drives to a local general store and buys plastic sheets and baby supplies. He tells the clerk it’s for a home birth, but something about his energy suggests that something much darker may be going on.

As he loads up his car, Frank notices a young woman across the lot doing the same. Something clicks in his mind, and he decides to follow her home.

Imitating a DWP agent, Frank proceeds to pretend to inspect the various water sources of the home, unlocking the bathroom window as he does so. 

He finishes his “inspection” and goes back home. When he arrives back with the birthing supplies, a woman’s scream can be heard coming from the basement. He goes down and shuts the door behind him, muting her cries.

MORE FUN AND GAMES

We jump back to the present day, where Tess attempts to catch Cale up to speed before the woman (referred to as MOTHER) comes back.

As Mother takes off down the tunnel with Cale, Tess is left alone in the pit. And holy shit, the gate’s still open. This is her chance.

We cut back to Cale and Mother, who are now in the pink room with the TV. Mother watches the educational maternity VHS playing and forcefully attempts to breastfeed Cale.

At the same time that all this is happening, Tess makes her escape. She crawls down the tunnel and past the pink room. She sees what’s going on with Cale, but there’s no way to help him. She presses on.

Just as she’s about to make her way out of the tunnel, Mother hears her escaping. She drops Cale and takes off after Tess. Tess sprints out of the tunnel, past the secret room, up the stairs, and into the basement. She can hear Mother coming.

When she reaches the basement, she discovers that the door into the house is locked (because of course it is). Luckily, there’s that small window leading to the front of the property. She quickly smashes the glass and squeezes her body through it, managing to escape just before Mother makes her way to the top. 

Tess begs the homeless man to help her get Cale out, but he swears there’s nothing that can be done for him. Tess doesn’t care. She’ll walk to the police station if she has to. The homeless man tells her to do what she wants, but to make sure she’s not walking around at night. Because once the sun sets, Mother roams the neighborhood. 

Also, with roughly twenty minutes left, the audience still doesn’t really know what’s going on. We know there’s a monster in the basement, and we know she has something to do with a scary rapist/murderer in the 70s, but we have no clue how Point A gets to Point B. That is, until Cale starts doing some exploring of his own.

What could possibly be scary enough to scare Mother? Cale doesn’t know, but as long as he’s able to get away from her, he’s willing to risk it. 

Just before the big reveal of what’s inside the room with him, we cut back to Tess, who has now made her way to a gas station and phoned the police. The cops arrive and start asking her questions, but quickly disregard her when they hear her story. To them, this is just another crackhead wasting their time. No help here.

We cut back to Cale.

Now back to Tess and the police. She’s managed to convince them to drive her to the house, despite sounding insane every time she speaks.

Back to Cale again.

Back outside the house, the police finally decide that Tess definitely is a crazy person and to just leave her there. 

They get back in their car and take off as she screams at them from the Hell that is Barbary Street.

Meanwhile, inside the basement, Cale’s face drops when he sees what Frank has been filming.

Two rapists in a room, forced to be reminded of the crimes that they’ve committed. The only difference is, Frank knew he was a monster; he just didn’t care until he realized he was going to have to answer for his sins. 

While Cale’s being traumatized in the tunnels, Tess decides she has to go back inside for her keys–driving is the only way out of here. She smashes the front window of the house, runs inside, snatches them up, and manages to get back into her car safely. What luck. She starts the vehicle and backs out of the driveway, assuming she’s finally made it out of there, until…

FINALE

After defeating Mother, Tess decides that she has to save Cale. She goes back into the house and descends into the basement at the same time Cale starts crawling out of there. There’s just one more problem: Cale took Frank’s gun with him.

If you hadn’t noticed already, a major theme in this movie is that holy shit do men suck.

Anyways, after accidentally shooting Tess, Cale helps her to the Earth’s surface. But when they get to the front of the house, they see that Mother’s no longer lying on the hook of the car. Shit. She’s still alive.

With no car (and no way out of this God-forsaken neighborhood), there’s only one potentially safe place left to go: the homeless man’s church.

Just when Cale has the opportunity to somewhat redeem himself, he decides to take a more sinister, barbaric path (which is bad for our likable protagonist, but good for the story, because his character definitely doesn’t deserve to be redeemed). 

Don’t worry, though; his actions don’t go unpunished.

CLOSING IMAGE

Tess, as the lone survivor of this nightmarish series of events, begins a long walk down the deserted, lonely Barbary Street. As she leaves behind the bodies of Frank, Keith, Mother, the homeless man, and Cale, she realizes that she’s finally free.

WHY IT’S GREAT

Barbarian truly is a marvel of modern horror. It achieves everything a great movie of the genre sets out to do and then goes even further. Filled with interesting characters, a mysterious setup with truly disturbing explanations, excellent pacing, terrifying scenes, fun deaths, and most important of all: an actually unpredictable plot that kept the audience on their toes from the very first page to the last. While I do love all the cheesy slasher and low-budget ghost movies that are especially popular this time of year, if you’re looking for something fresh and interesting to watch this Halloween, I cannot emphasize enough how much I recommend giving Barbarian a chance. Even if you don’t appreciate its endless number of technical achievements or well-crafted storytelling, I can promise you this: you’re going to get scared.