Tess books a rental house in Detroit and finds a stranger already staying there. What starts as a bad-luck night becomes something much stranger, in a story that keeps changing who you follow. Watch how Cregger keeps pulling the rug out from under the film you thought you were watching.
Barbarian is a 2022 horror and thriller film directed by Zach Cregger. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (3 narrative, 1 cinematography and 1 psychology), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Big Heat uses several of the same techniques.
Splitting a film into chapters that each follow a different character's point of view. Events overlap, so a scene you already saw comes back from another side and means something new.
How this film uses it
The film follows Tess, then jumps to a TV actor named AJ, and then goes back to 1982 to show who built the house's secret. Each section changes what you know about the one before. You think you understand the situation, and the next chapter proves you only saw part of it.
Where to see it
The jump to AJ. AJ, the house's owner, travels to Detroit to inspect the house before selling it, finds the tunnel and falls into a pit where Tess is still alive.
Setting the scariest scenes underground or in closed, below-ground spaces. The tight, buried setting becomes part of the horror.
How this film uses it
The scariest part of the house is below it. Tess finds a hidden room behind the basement, and a long tunnel leads down into a pit. Being underground, in cramped and hidden space, makes the dread physical, because there is no easy way out.
Where to see it
The basement. Tess locks herself in the basement and finds a hidden room with a camera, a mattress and a bloody handprint.
Setting up a film to look like a familiar genre, then breaking that genre's rules on purpose. You have to rethink what kind of story you are watching.
How this film uses it
It plays like a thriller about a woman who is stuck with a stranger. Then the film leaves her, shifts to someone else and turns into something stranger. Cregger said he kept looking for ways to surprise himself, and the structure shows it.
Where to see it
Keith and Tess. Tess follows Keith into the tunnel, and a deformed woman kills him, which breaks the thriller you thought you were watching.
Placing a menace in crowded or ordinary places such as streets, parks and suburbs, so ordinary spaces turn unsafe and bystanders offer no protection.
How this film uses it
The danger is in an ordinary rental house on an ordinary street. A booking mistake puts two strangers in one house. The most normal things, such as an open bedroom door, become unsettling.
Where to see it
The double booking. Tess arrives at an Airbnb in Brightmoor and finds Keith already there, then wakes to a bedroom door that is open.
Having a character sense danger early and talk themselves out of it to stay polite. You feel the dread of watching them override their own alarm.
How this film uses it
Tess notices the wrong signs from the start, and she keeps explaining them away. Cregger said he drew on a book that tells readers to trust their intuition about red flags. You want her to leave, and her good manners keep her in the house.
Where to see it
The first night. Tess finds the bedroom door open, hears Keith deny opening it and still stays.
Questions
Barbarian: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Barbarian use?
CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in Barbarian (2022): Multiple Perspective Chapters, Subterranean Space Horror, Genre Subversion, Threat in Everyday Settings and Ignored Instinct.
Who directed Barbarian?
Zach Cregger directed Barbarian, released in 2022. CineCode also covers Weapons (2025).
What films are similar to Barbarian?
Films that share techniques with Barbarian include The Big Heat (1953), Parasite (2019), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).
