Summary

• Barbarian subtly hints at a literary classic with a horror twist in its storyline.
• The film's original story revolves around disturbing discoveries in an abandoned house.
• Although inspired by a non-fiction book, Barbarian creatively flips the narrative of Jane Eyre into a horror movie.

Despite being an original story, Barbarian gives a horror twist to a literary classic, and it subtly hints at it on two occasions. The horror genre has been driven mostly by reboots and sequels in recent years, but it has also seen interesting and terrifying original stories. Among them is Barbarian, written and directed by Zach Cregger. Barbarian was a critical and commercial success, with critics praising its pace, suspense, twists, Cregger's direction, and the performances of the cast, becoming one of the best horror movies of the 2020s.

Barbarian follows Tess (Georgina Marshall), who arrives at a rental house in an abandoned neighborhood and finds out it was double-booked, and a man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is currently living there. After some initial hesitation, Tess warms up to Keith, and they agree to share the house, but the next day, they make a disturbing and deadly discovery after finding a series of hidden tunnels in the basement. Barbarian has a couple of twists and turns, mainly about its villains, and it’s a horror mirror to a 177-year-old literary classic.

Barbarian Gives A Disturbing Twist To Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre

Barbarian Has Key Similarities To Jane Eyre

As Barbarian progresses, the audience learns the original owner of the house is Frank, a man who kidnapped women in the 1980s (and it’s unknown when he stopped), hid them in the tunnels of the house, and sexually abused them and their offspring. All this multi-generational incest resulted in the Mother and her many deformities and disabilities, and by the time Tess, Keith, and AJ (Justin Long) arrive at the house, Frank is bedridden and in terrible conditions. Although the context was completely different, Barbarian has some similarities to Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre.

Jane notices strange things happening around the house, such as a mysterious laugh, an inexplicable fire, and a woman sneaking into her room to rip her wedding veil in two.

Published in 1847, Jane Eyre is the story of the title character, from her traumatic childhood to her time as a governess at Thornfield Hall. There she meets Edward Rochester, the master of the house, with whom she falls in love. However, Jane notices strange things happening around the house, such as a mysterious laugh, an inexplicable fire in Mr. Rochester’s room, an attack on a house guest, and a woman sneaking into her room to rip her wedding veil in two. It’s revealed during her wedding to Mr. Rochester that he’s already married to a woman named Bertha, who rapidly descended into “congenital madness”.

Barbarian flipped Jane Eyre by turning Frank into a criminal and the Mother into a monster.

Mr. Rochester locked her away in Thornfield Hall and had a nurse looking after her, but when the nurse gets drunk, Bertha escapes and creates chaos around the house. Janes escapes and when she returns some time later, she learns that Bertha set the house on fire and died after jumping from the roof, a similar fate to Barbarian’s Mother who jumps from a water tower to save Tess. Barbarian flipped Jane Eyre by turning Frank into a criminal and the Mother into a monster, and Tess carried a copy of Jane Eyre with her when she traveled to the house.

Barbarian Was Inspired By A Non-Fiction Book

Although Barbarian Is An Original Story, It Has Some Literary Inspiration

Cregger took inspiration from the non-fiction book The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

Despite the similarities between Barbarian and Jane Eyre, Cregger cited a completely different book as the inspiration for Barbarian. Cregger took inspiration from the non-fiction book The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker (via As The Bunny Hops), published in 1997. The Gift of Fear is about learning to identify warning signs and trusting your gut to avoid potential danger, and Cregger explained there’s a chapter directed towards women where they are encouraged to pay attention to the “minor red flags that men can give off in day-to-day situations”.

This inspired him to start writing what would become Barbarian, and started with the scenes in the double-booked AirBnB, making Keith a nice guy but with “a ton of these little triggers”. Cregger certainly knew how to use fear in his characters and every scene in Barbarian, but the similarities to Jane Eyre can’t be denied, especially after it focused on the book in two different scenes. In the end, the combination of these books made way for one of the best horror movies in recent years.

Source: As The Bunny Hops.