Stranger danger
TWO’S A CROWD IN THIS SHARE HOUSE HORROR FLICK WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS
BARBARIAN (MA15+)
Director: Zach Cregger (feature debut)
Starring: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgard, Justin Long.
Rating: ★★★★☆
You can’t judge a doublebooking by its cover
Across 2022, some of the finest flicks to both push the envelope of screen storytelling and press the buttons of an audience have hailed from the halls of horror.
Need further evidence? Give the likes of X, Nope, Smile and Bodies Bodies Bodies a try. Not one of them sticks to the usual textbook of terrifying tropes and tricks for very long.
As good as this bad-intentioned bunch have been, they may not be as truly great as the latest scarefest to land in cinemas, Barbarian.
Whoa. This unbelievably uncomfortable exercise in domestic dread takes a single, simple idea and uses it to tease and torment viewers in myriad ways. Just as you will be impressed, you will also be impacted.
In the finest tradition of highend horror, it starts so innocuously. (Unless you run an Airbnb. If bookings start to drop in the weeks and months ahead, it will likely be all the fault of Barbarian.)
It is a dark and rainy night in an outer suburb of Detroit. An aspiring documentary researcher named Tess (Georgina Campbell) has travelled some distance to get here for a job interview, and all she wants is a good night’s sleep ahead of the main event.
Unfortunately, she soon learns there is little chance of that happening. The Airbnb townhouse she secured online already has an occupant.
Keith (Bill Skarsgard) is most apologetic, but hey, he was sincerely here first, and he has the paperwork to prove it. Somewhat calmed by the knowledge there has been a legitimate double-booking, the initially guarded Tess lets her defences down a bit.
Keith seems like a stand-up kind of guy. A little needy, perhaps, but he doesn’t give off a seedy or sinister vibe.
Unable to land any alternative lodging for the evening – there is a big national convention in town – Tess accepts Keith’s kind offer to stay at the townhouse.
She can have the bedroom. He’ll take the couch out in the lounge.
Want to know more? Well, we are only at the 10minute mark of the movie here, and there is no way I can tell you another thing about what may or may not happen in Barbarian.
Let’s just state that this very skilfully made and cleverly thought-out descent into sustained suspense has plenty of stressinducing shocks in store.
If you can, see Barbarian with the type of friend who doesn’t mind debating the pros and cons of a movie after it is over. Believe you me, there is a lot to pick apart and put back together here. Once the frights stop, the real fun starts. Barbarian is in cinemas now
MRS HARRIS GOES TO PARIS (PG) Rating: ★★★1/2☆ Selected cinemas
A winningly worthy showcase for a long-cherished talent of British stage and screen, Lesley Manville. She plays Mrs Harris, a widowed cleaning lady who has her heart set on having a Dior dress to call her very own.
As it is the late 1950s and this lowly paid Londoner is getting on in years, the chances of this designer dream ever coming true seems highly unlikely. That is until Mrs H receives a windfall that propels her all the way to the front door of the fabled House of Dior in Paris. Upon our heroine’s arrival in the French capital, the movie subtly changes gears and becomes a delightful fairytale for adults.
While many of the snootier types on the Parisian fashion scene initially treat Mrs Harris like dirt, she sticks to her guns and stays true to her values until an entourage of friends and wellwishers join her quest to own that beautiful dress. Manville is never less than wonderful in the leading role, and selflessly lifts the work rate of other cast members (most notably Isabelle Huppert as an imperious Dior dame) to keep the movie in an audience’s good graces throughout. Lovely stuff.
BROS (MA15+) Rating: ★★★☆☆ General release
As the first openly gay romantic comedy to get a proper push from a major Hollywood studio, Bros represents a breakthrough moment that will be recognised in years to come.
While Bros is perhaps doomed not to win over the wide audience it craves – the movie has already tanked in the US after a wide release – it is a darn sight funnier, sharper and more energised than any other recent rom-com. However, it is by no means perfect, and the flaws that hold Bros back from blitzing as a crowd-pleaser only become more pronounced over a way-too-generous two-hour running time.
Billy Eichner (best known for his brilliant work on TV’s Difficult People and Billy On the Street) stars as Bobby, a podcaster, museum curator and lifelong commitment-phobe. Just when the rest of his life is looking like one long chain of disastrous dating hook-ups, Bobby falls for Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a guy who is so decidedly not his “type” that he just might be “the one”.
Macfarlane and Eichner’s screen chemistry is emphatically charming, and just like the best rom-coms, you want them to end up together, come what may.
However, after too many scenes where Eichner (not the most conventional, nor consistently endearing of leading men) is left to shoulder the movie’s heavy load alone, the movie’s hard-earned, forward-thinking momentum can slow to a standstill.