This year's surprise horror hit Barbarian has finally come home. Written and directed by The Whitest Kids U' Know alum Zach Cregger, the film centers on a group of people whose interconnected narratives bring them to a house in a rundown neighborhood of Detroit, which harbors a dark secret within its hidden underground tunnels.
Georgina Campbell leads the cast of Barbarian alongside Justin Long, Bill Skarsgård, Matthew Patrick Davis, Richard Brake, and James Butler. Much like Jordan Peele before him, Cregger breaks free of his comedy past to deliver a thoroughly haunting and subversive horror treat.
With Barbarian now on digital platforms, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with writer & director Zach Cregger and star Matthew Patrick Davis to discuss the film, Cregger's shift away from his genre past, the design of the film's terrifying villain, and more.
Zach Cregger & Matthew Patrick Davis on Barbarian
Screen Rant: Barbarian is a hell of a film. I watched it the other night and was blown away from start to finish by what I saw. Zach, you come from comedy. This film has a dark sense of humor, but at the same time, it's terrifying. What was it like for you to make that leap in genres?
Zach Cregger: I don't know. I didn't really ever think about it like, "This is so different than what I'm normally doing." I'm a horror fan, I always have been, so I just kind of wrote it as a treat for myself. I didn't write this to be a movie, I just wanted to write something fun just for the joy of writing. I kind of created it in that sort of joyful spirit, and then when I had a script that I had kind of created in that way, I figured, "Let's just keep it going like this."
The rest of the process of directing the movie, I just kind of had that same attitude of, "I know what this is, I stitched it together from nothing." It was just kind of one foot follows the other, really. I don't know if that's a great answer to your question, but it's kind of the only answer I feel I know to give. [Chuckles]
I think it worked perfectly. Since you are a big fan of horror, did you have any major influences or inspirations going into this one, be it the look or the tone of the film?
Zach Cregger: I guess the main influence for this — and there's a million influences, we're all film lovers, so every movie you ever see is lodged in there somewhere. So, thousands of movies go into this movie, but I'd say Audition, the Takashi Miike 1999 movie, that's the spiritual ancestor, for sure. Just because, thematically and structurally, it's very similar. Psycho as well.
But in terms of the tone, our rule was Fincher upstairs, Raimi downstairs. David Fincher was the beginning, and then once we go under the house, you know, Sam Raimi with all the goofiness and visual flair that he uses.
Matthew, what was your first reaction when this script came across your desk, and you saw all that it would entail?
Zach Cregger: Matthew, I'll take this. He liked it! He really liked it. [Laughs]
Matthew Patrick Davis: Thank you, Zach. Yeah, no, it was wild. I was just like, "This is insane and bonkers," and, "Oh, my gosh, how would I even do all of these crazy things?" Then, when I found out, "Oh, it's Justin Long, I've been a fan of his since he was on Ed, and in Galaxy Quest and stuff. I'm gonna have to do some deeply strange things, too." And with Justin, "I really hope he's nice and cool." Luckily, he was the nicest and coolest.
Did you find it odd or funny to have to interact with the actors in between takes in that big suit?
Matthew Patrick Davis: Yeah. Luckily, I had been on set before getting into all the rubber bits, so I was able to interact with everyone, just looking like me. Then I would go under the makeup and be in those dark tunnels that were actually kind of scary. I remember the first time that Justin saw me in the getup in the tunnels, I think he was literally scared, and a little disturbed.
I just remember, he was coming in, and he was in a good mood. Then he just saw me come out of the darkness, and he just was like, "Oh, can we go back to the other movie we were making? I don't like this movie anymore." [Laughs] He would stare at my boobs, and then laugh, and then stare at my crotch, and then laugh. Yeah, he was unsettled.
Zach Cregger: I remember you kept having to say to Justin, "Hey, I'm up here."
Matthew Patrick Davis: Exactly, eyes up here.
Going off that, Zach, what was it like finding the look of The Mother for this film?
Zach Cregger: There was a drawing in a Beowulf illustrated book I had as a kid, and there's this illustration of Grendel's mother that really made an impact on me. So, that was what was in my head when I was writing it, and I showed that to the team. Matthew and I talked a lot about physicality, and how The Mother would move, and things like that. Then, when I went over, we put all these prosthetics on Matthew's face, and I had a cast of his face before he even showed up in Bulgaria.
I had kind of designed some of the prosthetics with a team that were very subtle, they didn't really look like they do in the movie. One of the studio execs, on the drive home from the lab, from the studio, where we were working on the face stuff, I could tell she was bothered, and I was like, "What is it?" and she was like, "I just don't think it's very scary. I don't think that face is very scary." And I think she was right, it was really, really subtle. It would look like Matthew's face with long hair, and he's a pretty handsome man, and that's not really gonna freak people out. Matthew, you're hot. So, that night, I went home, and I did a ton of research into facial deformities, and I picked this cheek, and that mouth, and this chin, the asymmetry came in.
We went back the next day, kind of in a panic, because we were going to start shooting very soon, and we just cranked it up to basically a Francis Bacon level. Then, we had what we have, so it was always very clear in my mind, and then at the 11th hour, I realized I did not have it right, and so we had to kind of reshuffle the deck. Matthew, you probably don't know about any of that stuff, right?
Matthew Patrick Davis: Right, I vaguely knew about it, but that was all before I arrived. I was kind of in the dark, there was the Grendel's mother drawing, but there weren't renderings that I could see, and then I remember the makeup testing process being an iterative thing. I remember the beginning, "Oh, the teeth are way too cartoony, the boobs are way too big or whatever, the head is too big." Then, by the end, it got dialed, and I just remember that process [had] me being very anxious, because I'm like, "This either will work or won't."
Zach Cregger: Right? You and me both, man.
Matthew Patrick Davis: Right, exactly. So, I remember feeling great relief once we got there right before shooting, that like, "Oh, this looks great."
Zach Cregger: A low-budget movie like this, because this is a $4.5 million movie, it's tiny. You don't have the benefit that these bigger movies have of screen testing things. If this was a giant Hollywood movie, we would have spent a lot of time in prep on building you, filming you in the darkness, coming out of the darkness, debating it, trying other versions, seeing what would work, putting it up to a committee, and having everybody approve on things. But this, "We got to just slap it together, because we're shooting tomorrow," and we're lucky that we had such a talented team over there that could kind of deliver.
Matthew Patrick Davis: And being in Bulgaria made it tough, too. Because if it was shooting in LA, we could have done all this prep months out, but yeah.
They delivered; it's a horrifying design. What were some of the biggest goals and talking points you had in regards to The Mother's movements, going both in the tunnel and outside?
Matthew Patrick Davis: One thing that Zach told me early on, and I was very grateful for this, was to Google "feral children." I didn't even really know what that meant until I started looking it up and going down this dark rabbit hole of stories of actual victims that were kept in cages during their formative years, and never spoken to, and therefore never learned to speak. They were described, now, as like 20-year-olds, or a two-year-old in a 20-year-old's body.
There was one particular video that I just kind of honed in on, and I would literally watch that video in the makeup chair, sometimes, just to get into this woman's physicality. So, it was a specific one of those women, of all these tragic, horrific stories, that I watched that helped me key in to that.
Zach Cregger: And then Matthew had a really amazing — we had a conversation that led to a huge breakthrough for me, actually, where Matthew knew I was going to be filming the footage that's on the TV in the mother's room, the breastfeeding video. That's something that I filmed in Bulgaria, so that we could have it actually playing on the TV and didn't have to put it in post. When he was still in the States before he came to Bulgaria, he was like, "Can you send me that video, so that I can study it and mimic the behavior of the woman in the video?"
I hadn't shot the video yet, and I was like, "Oh my god, that is such a brilliant idea." Then I started, I was like, "Oh, I can build all these gestures into the video that you can replicate," so that's where the booping of the nose came from, and the final kiss to the forehead, all of that was so that Matthew could mimic it in the movie. It was such a great depth of collaboration, baby.
Matthew Patrick Davis: Isn't it wild?
Zach Cregger: That was really a great elevator of your character, I thought it was so smart of you.
Matthew Patrick Davis: Those now, in the film, are huge moments, big moments. The boop, comedically, and then the kiss at the end, emotionally, it's just wild that was thought of last minute, and created in the moment there.
That is awesome, because that's such an important touch for the character. The movie has become a sleeper hit at the box office and critics are loving it. How does it feel to see this really positive reception to the film?
Zach Cregger: Surreal. What do you think?
Matthew Patrick Davis: Yeah, it is surreal. I'm just trying to take it in and be grateful. I'm very aware, everything has gone in the positive [directions]. This business, everything can collapse at any moment, but at every step, it's gone the right way for us, and so I'm grateful. I've seen it in the theaters like 10 times now, it's just been so fun to see it with audiences.
About Barbarian
Arriving in Detroit for a job interview, a young woman books a rental home. But when she arrives late at night, she discovers that the house is double booked and a strange man is already staying there. Against her better judgment, she decides to spend the evening, but soon discovers that there’s a lot more to fear than just an unexpected house guest. From 20th Century Studios and New Regency, Barbarian stars Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, and Justin Long. Written and directed by Zach Cregger.
Check out our other Barbarian interviews here:
Barbarian is now available on digital platforms.