Film Review of the Week

Horror

Barbarian (18)

Review: The perils of a short-term home rental are des res for stomach-churning terror in a derivative young-woman-in-peril horror that evicts plausibility before the first droplets of blood are spilt. Written and directed by Zach Cregger with plentiful on-screen splatter and a disturbing breast-feeding sequence that left me considering a dairy-free diet, Barbarian suckles on the dread of an overnight stay in unfamiliar surroundings. Cregger has a firm grasp on teasing the omens of impending doom.

The opening 30 minutes, essentially a two-hander between actors Georgina Campbell and Bill Skarsgard, are deliciously tense and our discomfort is stoked by repeated intrusions from composer Anna Drubich’s discordant score. Once the film’s ill-fated heroine opens the door to a basement and descends into the gloom, any nervous nail-biting is swiftly replaced by head-shaking and snorts of derision as the lead character blithely abandons common sense and deliberately puts herself in harm’s way to service the plot.

This cavalier attitude towards personal safety diminishes sympathy for the lead character to the point that we’re almost relieved when something unspeakable comes hurtling out of the darkness and punishes her reckless abandon. A protracted second act set two weeks later, which introduces an obnoxious actor (Justin Long) facing allegations of sexual aggression towards a female co-star, continues to defy logic, teeing up another subterranean journey by flickering torchlight and a big reveal via stylised flashback to the 1980s.

Tess Marshall (Campbell) travels to Detroit for an important job interview and books accommodation for the night through an app. Arriving at a house in one of the city’s rundown neighbourhoods during a raging rainstorm, Tess is shocked to discover the property has been double-booked by a man called Keith (Skarsgard). “Why don’t you come inside?” he gestures. Tess ignores her intuition and accepts his kind offer so she can telephone nearby hotels and find alternative accommodation ahead of an important job interview in the morning for a research position with a celebrated documentary filmmaker.

Unfortunately, there is a big convention in town and everywhere is sold out. Rather than spend the night in her rental car, Tess agrees to take the bedroom while Keith sleeps on the sofa. Strange noises emanating from below ground confirm that Keith is the least of Tess’s worries if she wants to survive a night in Michigan.

Punctuated by explosions of graphic violence that fully warrant the 18 certificate, Barbarian springs too many plot holes, allowing tension to gradually evaporate. Impressive prosthetics transform actor Matthew Patrick Davis into a terrifying and oddly touching antagonist, who deserves a better resolution than Cregger contrives here.

Comedy

Bros (15)

Review: Billed as the first gay romantic comedy released by a major Hollywood studio with a predominantly LGBTQ+ cast, Bros warmly embraces the cosy conventions of a boy meets boy love story and tempers emotional gooeyness with the acerbic wit of lead actor Billy Eichner, who co-wrote the script with director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Audiences from across the Kinsey scale, which measures degrees of sexual orientation, will appreciate the film’s deep irreverence to pop culture, heteronormativity and gay representation, including uproarious self-mockery from Debra Messing, best known as one half of Will & Grace and a fervent ally of the LGBTQ+ community.

Eichner snags the lion’s share of zinging lines, like when his angsty forty-something jealously compares his fraught journey of self-discovery to members of Gen-Z navigating their sexual identities: “It’s not fair. We had Aids, they had Glee!” Bros is delightfully self-aware and mines universally appealing humour from key talking points in gay culture – straight acting vs feminine, monogamy vs open relationship – without artificially sweetening or sanitising on-screen behaviour. Hook-up apps like Grindr lead to raunchy sexual encounters that deliver surprisingly big laughs and gay characters are frequently their own worst enemies when it comes to deliberating the many glorious facets of masculinity. Eichner and co-star Luke Macfarlane catalyse winning chemistry from their first lingering glance across a nightclub dancefloor.

Sardonic podcaster Bobby Lieber (Eichner) hosts The Eleventh Brick At Stonewall and is a proud recipient of a best cis male gay man award from his peers in New York. His children’s book Are You There God? It’s Martina Navratilova was a rare misstep and Bobby intends to build on his brand of “getting angry about things” as curator of the first National LGBTQ+ History Museum in America, which requires an investment of five million dollars to open. Bobby wears his single status like a badge of honour to the chagrin of a close circle of friends that includes married couple Tina (Monica Raymund) and Edgar (Guillermo Diaz).

During the launch party of a new gay dating app called Zellweger, where men chat about their favourite actresses before they hook up, Bobby locks eyes with handsome jock Aaron Shepard (Macfarlane), whose masculine energy is intimidating. Despite obvious differences, the two men awkwardly navigate a no-strings relationship that is complicated when Aaron’s soon-to-be-married high school crush (Ryan Faucett) unexpectedly breaks off his engagement and comes out of the closet.

Bros is an effervescent and effortlessly charming treat that wears its heart on its sleeve next to a rainbow pride enamel pin. The first hour is noticeably funnier and spikier before Stoller starts laying the groundwork for a grand romantic gesture that unabashedly plucks heartstrings and has tears visibly welling in Macfarlane’s eyes. Old-fashioned, hopeful romantics will follow his lead. Boys do cry.