#Barbarian movie

[fanofspooky]

[bongwaterbunny]

i think keith deserved better honestly. justice for bbg.

[crowfilmz]

Barbarian (2022)

[scarystinkyskeletons]

Heres some ranting and raving about the feminist horror of Barbarian. Hopefully you all enjoy or are at least amused.

**SPOILERS for the 2022 movie Barbarian ahead - it's 2 years old lol but whatever here's your warning**

Last night I got to enjoy the movie "Barbarian" with some friends. Now, I have to start out saying: It is quite gory, I am a big baby, and don't like watching (or reading!) gore/gratuitous violence in general. But god, am I willing to put up with it for the sake of the absolutely brilliant social commentary that really only comes from the horror genre. 

The main take away is that a "nice guy" rapist with plentiful justifications for his terrible behavior sees a "women in cages" rapist as if they have nothing in common, not realizing that they are both monsters. You can find movie explanations expanding on that theme online (here, for example).

But I want to touch on some other things I find noteworthy:

First, the creature (called The Mother) everyone is running from & trying to escape in fear is actually a victim. She is the result of generations of captive inbreeding. She's doing the only thing she knows how to do - "mothering". People fear her for reasons that are the result of what has happened to her and generations of women before her. When victims do everything right & come forward, we punish them, as we see with our "nice guy" rapist degrading and attempting to manipulate his own victim. But even when victims do things as they were taught - the only things they know to do - we punish them again. There's no winning outcome for them, just degrees of survival. The mother been forced to become a creature that doesn't have a place in human society, and ultimately that's why Tess has to kill her.

The Barbarian who is living under the house is a bed bound alcoholic, and when we first come upon him, he looks like he might be a victim! <sarcasm> Who has trapped this helpless, bed bound man under the house? </sarcasm> and truly, this is a reflection of how our biases skew our perception/interpretation of what we see, what we think we know, and our consideration of unknown unknowns. Looking at him in that state, he doesn't look like someone who could climb a flight of stairs, none-the-less build a tunnel system for his captives. But he is actually still the master of this world he has created despite being physically powerless, as he has a bell system in the tunnel. We may speculate that he calls for the Mother (who is his daughter) when he has needs to be satisfied.

In the end, it is the male ego we tend to nurse back to health, helping it cling to life well beyond its welcome. I think this all really points towards how society receives victims who make themselves known - they are perceived as a random monster wrecking some helpless man's life.

But there's an interesting dualistic pair also in this story: the exploration of how men who actually try to protect women are treated, and the actions/inaction of males who pretend to be protective in our society. The first side of this is represented by the homeless man who tries to warn her. Initially she runs from him due to her own biases and assumptions. He later saves her, and she realizes she can trust him. The contrast are the cops who show up, degrade the survivor, do nothing, and leave them to be re-victimized. All to say, the men we expect to show up and help us rarely do; many of them are all talk and work together to intentionally accomplish nothing. Those men who choose to do the right thing - who choose to warn us and show up to protect us from the real monsters - tend to be punished for it, or are exiled from their social circles for speaking out. The homeless man even tells Tess that the Mother isn't the worst thing down there, and he is right. He knows the real evil is the man who created the Mother. He is violently killed by her because the cops have failed to protect him too.

The men in this movie show quite the gradient of behavior: the homeless man who warns and saves her; the cops who have the power to help but choose to do nothing; the housemate, a stranger Tess is stuck with by circumstance, who is super creepy when he tries to stop her from leaving; the "nice guy" rapist, a hollywood bro who is never at fault in his own mind nor in the minds of his friends, and is blissfully full of excuses for the way he violates women; and the monster who has build a secret passage into/under his house for the purpose of keeping generations of women and children as sex slaves.

The mother kills multiple men in this movie, but not the man who has done her the most harm. He has killed himself like a coward when our "nice guy" rapist discovers the evidence of what he has done. Truly, there is no justice for the Mother. At the end, our leading lady survives with the help of the Mother after our "nice guy" rapist tries to kill her, and I think that allows us to wrap up on a positive note: we can survive if we stick together.

[criminallyaddictedtomilk]

[rystiel]

watched barbarian and. keith is so fucking stupid bro. if the woman i’m staying at an airbnb with comes running from the basement in a panic talking about a secret room with a bed, a camera, and a bucket with bloody handprints on the wall, i would just get the fuck out of there?? i would NOT go down there to check it out myself?? hello????

[lenore-spirit-808]

I know that Keith Toshko is not hot topic now but even if I haven’t seen the movie (because its not available neither on disney + or HBO max on my country) I’ll never stop loving this wholesome-weird fella

[theslasherbabe]

The character x Their death

[rainbowlinoleum]

If The Mother has a million fans, then I'm one of them. If The Mother has one fan, then I'm THAT ONE. If The Mother has no fans, that means I'm dead.

[fanofspooky]

Scream King - Bill Skarsgard

[ratleyland]

What did I just watch here?

I really enjoyed this movie... but the ending was a bit 'meh'.

[bongwaterbunny]

"if you get upset, she gets upset" but it's my alters warning whoever i interact with

[cormancatacombs]

I’m wheezing

[weshallcleansetheworld]

Don’t read about it or watch the trailer. Watch it without knowing anything about it. If you don’t like it when it’s over, read up on it afterwards - you probably didn’t fully understand it.

[konakoro]

The intensity where Barbarian goes from an uneasy domestic horror thriller to Sam Raimi Bonanza is bonkers

[raisedbyascreen16]

Tess Is The Dumbest Final Girl I've Seen.