Warning: This post contains spoilers for Barbarian
The following article contains discussions of sexual violence
Director Zach Cregger’s horror film Barbarian has more to say than initially meets the eye, and Barbarian’s true message is actually revealed by what scenes are missing from the movie. Barbarian has received rave reviews from critics, scoring a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for being a horrifying, darkly comedic, and unpredictable thrill ride. However, the details of Barbarian’s story inspiration and the secrets the movie keeps hidden from audiences give Barbarian a timely, poignant message in addition to the surface-level scares.
Barbarian focuses on Tess (Georgina Campbell), a young woman traveling to Detroit for a job interview only to discover that the Airbnb she’s reserved has been double-booked and a strange man, Keith (IT's Bill Skarsgård) is already staying there. But Barbarian’s simple premise takes a shocking turn when Tess and Keith discover the house sits on a large underground series of tunnels patrolled by a monstrous woman known only as The Mother. While some Barbarian fan theories suggest that The Mother is Barbarian’s titular character, this is ultimately not the case and Barbarian’s message gives much more meaning to its title.
As the unpredictable plot of Barbarian plays out, it is revealed that the film’s true villains are Justin Long’s AJ Gilbride and Richard Brake’s Frank. After AJ - the owner of the Airbnb - finds himself face-to-face with Frank in the tunnels Barbarian reveals that The Mother is the result of Frank’s decades-long reign of terror against women in Detroit. AJ, a man who has himself been accused of rape, watches one of the many videotapes Frank has recorded of himself raping and, presumably, murdering several women over the years. AJ is utterly horrified by the tape; however, Barbarian director Zach Cregger does not show viewers the contents of the video. Additionally, Barbarian declines to show audiences any scenes of Frank kidnapping or otherwise harming women in the flashback that explains his origin. The subtle choice to avoid showing any scenes acts of sexual violence on screen exposes Barbarian’s true monsters, illuminating the film’s central theme.
How AJ & Frank Are Connected
In Barbarian’s second act, when AJ is introduced and accused of rape by one of his television co-stars, AJ initially dismisses the accusation out of hand before eventually revealing to a childhood friend that he was denied consent but that he’s a “persistent” dude. This exchange, and AJ’s drunken voicemail apology to the victim, confirm that the rape did, in fact, occur without ever showing it. A perfectly cast Justin Long gives Barbarian an unassuming villain. But Barbarian’s choice to leave out any scene that actually shows the assault implies that it is too violent to show on screen and leaves viewers to their own imaginations to fill in the horrific details. The tactic of not fully showing the monster on screen is common in horror movies and, when done appropriately, can make them even scarier. Since the rest of the film is unflinchingly violent, Barbarian’s refusal to show AJ’s assault suggests that any interpersonal violence, even what some men may consider simple persistence, is beyond the pale and truly barbaric.
Omitting the scene of AJ’s crime mirrors the decision Barbarian makes later with Frank’s videotapes and expositional flashbacks. After watching Frank’s tape, AJ is shocked and appalled by what he sees, but the viewer cannot see it and instead has to use imagination to fill in the details once again. This is an important decision because, eventually, as AJ attempts to use what he saw on Frank’s tapes to minimize his own act of sexual violence this ploy fails. Zach Cregger's Barbarian refuses AJ the opportunity to downplay the awful nature of his crime, instead connecting him and Frank as two men who are equally guilty of acts too violent and disturbing to be shown in the movie.
Why The Mother Killed Keith In Barbarian
As AJ discovers Frank’s lair within the underground tunnel, Barbarian reveals that The Mother – to that point the film’s “big bad” - refuses to go near it. This intimates that The Mother is still afraid of Frank, which stands to reason since she is the product of several decades of unseen abuse and sexual violence. Living in an abandoned neighborhood and only coming above ground at night, it can be gathered that The Mother’s interactions with men are limited to Frank. In some of Barbarian’s most terrifying scenes, The Mother gives Tess and AJ the opportunity to be “her babies”. But when Tess reveals that The Mother reacts violently whenever one of her captives gets upset, this suggests that The Mother’s years of abuse have, understandably, made her mistrusting and violent of hostile strangers. Especially men. So, it’s likely that Keith’s initial reaction to The Mother caused her to see Keith as a threat, as another man looking to abuse her like Frank, instead of one of her babies. Leading The Mother to kill Keith. Additionally, lingering on the violent image of Keith’s head being smashed into a wall over and over stands in stark contrast to Barbarian’s refusal to show any scenes of sexual violence on screen, confirming that director Cregger sees the latter as much more disturbing.
Barbarian's True Message Explained
By not showing either AJ or Frank’s violent crimes against women, the film foregoes the straightforward options that s standard horror movie trailer suggested it might take. It also avoids making The Mother a simple horror villain and instead reveals that the real barbarians are the men who abuse women and the society that ignores those women. Director Zach Cregger’s decision to omit scenes that directly show any of Frank or AJ’s violence in the film confirms Barbarian’s true message condemning these men and others like them as the lowest, most barbaric human beings imaginable. But Barbarian rejects positioning its villains as two opposite ends of a spectrum or suggesting that one is in any way more humane than the other. Instead, by leaving out any scenes that might in any way let AJ off the hook, Barbarian's ending and true meaning portrays AJ and Frank as two men at different points along the same violent, destructive path. AJ is at the beginning of that path, and Frank is at its inevitable conclusion. In Barbarian’s final moments, much like his older counterpart, AJ is too cowardly to accept any responsibility for his own actions, and his attempts to deflect blame and explain away his neglect and violence against women lead directly to his destruction.
