Weapons and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures
Directed by Zach Cregger
I went ahead and checked my backlog of reviews, and it turns out that I didn’t actually post a review of Barbarian when it came out. It’s strange because I remember seeing it in the theaters, and I’m pretty sure I started writing something, but clearly it fell through the cracks and I just never got around to it; a fate that will probably be shared by both Companion and Novocain this year. Sorry, Jack Quaid. In any case, I thought the movie was a very solid first outing for a budding horror filmmaker. Cregger was certainly no Jordan Peele when it comes to sketch comedians making scary movies, but there was plenty to like in that movie and, I was interested to see where he would go from there. His latest movie is generating the kind of buzz that you would expect from a Jordan Peele level filmmaker, which certainly has me excited to see what the former Whitest Kids You Know member has up his sleeve this time. Are we witnessing the evolution of another horror icon, or will Cregger’s latest outing be an also-ran in a genre that has an overabundance of talented filmmakers already? Let’s find out!!
In the small town of Maybrook, not unlike your own hometown, a mysterious thing happened one night. At 2:17am, seventeen kids mysteriously got out of their beds and did the Naruto run into the darkness of the night. What’s more peculiar is that they all came from a single classroom at the local elementary school, leaving just one kid who didn’t run away named Alex (Cary Christopher), and the teacher Justine (Julia Garner). With such a bizarre thing to happen and with no explanation to be found, the town became very suspicious of Justine even after the police and FBI cleared her of all wrongdoing. Leading the charge is Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the lost kids, but he’s only the tip of the iceberg as Justine is scrutinized at every turn and even gets put on administrative leave from the school as the principal (Benedict Wong) feels her presence would just escalate tensions further, but nothing is going to keep her or this community safe until someone figures out what’s going on. Where did these kids go, and what drove them there in the first place? Will Justine find the answers before she becomes a victim of the town’s grief and growing madness? You know, teachers are already under constant scrutiny as it is, and they certainly don’t need something like this on their shoulders!
One of the things that made The Whitest Kids You Know is that it had a very childish sense of humor which was great for that group and led to some iconic sketches and I think he brought some of those sensibilities to this project. The movie isn’t a farce, and it’s far from juvenile, but it has that sense of child-like wonder where imagination is key, and the questions of how something happen are far less interesting than seeing how things shake out if it did happen. It’s a campfire story that all the sensible adults are forced to live through, and the utter disconnect between this very normal community and the seeming impossibility of this tragedy is where Cregger really starts to show how well he grasps the world we live in. It’s fascinating to see how this town reacts to the inexplicable traumatic event at the movie’s core, and you start to wonder how you would feel in a situation like this with no rational answer to be had. Of course, we know how some people would choose to react given that we live in a time of heightened conspiratorial thinking, and the script gives the actors a lot of opportunity to convey a wide range of both relatable and utterly repellant emotions as the pressure of the situation grips ever tighter. To be stuck in this middle of all of that is terrifying, even before anything explicitly horrifying, supernatural, or monstrous rears its ugly head, and Julia Garner as the scapegoat for all of this does a great job being the cornered animal under a blazing spotlight. The movie is on a slow boil, but the right kind of slow boil that never feels overlong or that it’s spinning its wheels. It’s in no hurry to get to the scary bits; not because it’s padding for time or thinks that it’s building more suspense by making us wait, but because it’s trying to convey something important, and it’s endlessly gripping to watch play out.
Once it does start to give us answers as to what’s going on, it somehow gets even better. I wouldn’t dare to spoil the latter half of this movie once all the dominos start to fall, but whatever is going on is brilliantly executed that engenders terror, fear, sadness, and no small amount of humor as it all starts to fall into place. It’s unexpected, but not in a way that feels unearned since it does fit with what we’ve seen up to this point, even if it’s not the kind of answer you could reasonably guess from the clues laid out beforehand. It switches focus significantly from a broader examination of how people react to unexpected tragedies like this into something much more personal and character driven with the introduction of a character who commands attention whenever they’re on-screen and will certainly become a Spirit Halloween costume staple for years to come. They are such a fascinating character that I wish the movie spent more time with them as their presence feels somewhat truncated and a bit more inexplicable than I would have liked, but I guess wishing there was more of something is a good sign that they pulled it off well, and the ending of the movie is bound to be remembered as an all-time classic for the genre in no small part due to their iconic presence.
If I have to say that the movie falls short to any degree, it’s in the script, which left me with a few questions at the end, but they were mostly about logistics rather than anything that would genuinely blunt the impact of what’s actually going on in this town. Still, even if the movie works on that visceral level, and it has a lot of interesting things to say, I do think that the film never fully comes together on a thematic level. The movie starts with a grounded exploration of collective trauma; both from the perspective of the scapegoat and the ones sacrificing them, and this is where the movie feels the most impactful. It changes gears in the second act and turns into an intense horror movie that is wonderfully put together with devastating yet brilliant character moments, but the thematic through line feels a bit severed and I think the movie could have spent a little more time tying the first half into the second half in that way; mainly through the character introduced in the second half who already needed a little more screen-time. I also don’t quite get the thematic purpose of the title, nor some of the imagery it deploys to reinforce it, but then again, perhaps I simply don’t fully comprehend whatever message Zach Cregger was trying to convey here. I mean, who am I to question one of the men who brought us Kid Beer, The Grapest, and A Gallon Of PCP?
I can see this movie splitting audiences right down the middle. As much as I love this movie and am singing its praises, it does go to some strange places and the disconnect between the first and second halves may be felt by some viewers, even if they don’t fully comprehend what it is that’s causing that feeling. They could also find the answer to the mystery disappointing, as it does ask you to go along with some wild ideas that the first half didn’t really prepare you for, but that’s what made it all the more enthralling for me. A filmmaker needs to be willing to take big swings if they want to make something that is truly amazing, and I think Cregger has staked his place in the genre with this movie that I recommend everyone to go see. It may not be to everyone’s tastes by the end, but the journey is quite a thing to behold.
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