Photo: EW
This weekend, another horror mystery film was buzzed by moviegoers. Zach Cregger’s Barbarian had a killer premiere at the box office.
The actor’s film directorial debut opened at the top spot with $10 million, per the report from Comscore.
The horror movie features Georgina Campbell as Tess, a young woman who finds that the rental home she booked is already inhabited by a stranger, Keith (Bill Skarsgård). Reluctantly, Tess stays the night and later finds that there’s more to fear than an unexpected house guest.
Barbarian, which has petrified immense positive critic feedback and a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for its twists and turns, also features Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis, and Jaymes Butler.
“It was so engaging, so scary,” Long, who plays an embattled actor with his own connections to the house of horror rentals, said in an interview with EW at the Comic-Con this year. “I mean, scary and unexpected.”
He added: “I’ve read a lot of horror scripts, and I’ve done a few of those movies, so it’s very rare to find something that breaks the convention and is that unique and original.”
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Barbarian is Cregger’s First
In recent times, Cregger unveiled that he was given a ted talk by the director and buddy Jordan Peele, who has also taken the same path as a comedian-turned-horror filmmaker.
“He spent a lot of time with me before I went to Bulgaria to shoot the movie,” Cregger said in an interview with Variety. “He gave me a crash course on how to handle the inevitable challenges, and that was so valuable.”
He continued, “I don’t think horror and comedy are too dissimilar. The anatomy of a scare is very similar to the anatomy of a laugh. It’s all about timing and tone and zigging when the audience expects you to zag. I feel like my time in sketch comedy had equipped me to play in this pool.”
Barbarian is not the only new film that saw a huge box office success this weekend. Brahmastra Part 1: Shiva, an Indian Hindi-language fantasy adventure directed by Ayan Mukerji, opened just behind Barbarian at No. 2 with $4.4 million.
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