Barbarian writer-director Zach Cregger on his shocking horror debut

Barbarian interview – Zach Cregger

Spoiler warning! The following interview discusses plot elements of Barbarian. See the movie first!

In this era of multiple trailer drops and extensive advance film coverage, filmgoers often have a good idea of what to expect when they head to the theatre. Barbarian is here to change that. The feature debut from writer-director Zach Cregger (best known as a co-founder of the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U Know), Barbarian is an intense and surprising new horror film that keeps its secrets close to its blood-soaked chest.

Barbarian stars Georgina Campbell (Broadchurch) as Tess, a young woman traveling to Detroit for a job interview. Arriving in the middle of the night to her Airbnb in a run-down neighbourhood, she finds it already occupied by a similarly confused man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård, It). With no other lodging available, the pair decide to split up the home for the night, with Keith taking the couch and Tess taking the one bedroom.

If the audience’s alarm bells weren’t already ringing, Tess is awoken by a disturbance in the night, and finds the bedroom door ajar. Exploring the house the next day, Tess and Keith discover a network of tunnels underneath the home, filled with cages and old video equipment.

The pair quickly realize they are not alone in the house, and the secrets of just who or what is stalking them make up just one of the most surprising elements in this endlessly twisty horror-comedy hybrid.

We caught up with Barbarian writer-director Zach Cregger to discuss keeping the audience on their toes, why he cast Justin Long as the scuzzy homeowner, playing with the audience by planting as many red flags for Tess as possible, and the gory sequence he cut from the film.

Barbarian is in theatres now.

“It becomes a delicate sort of a dance to try and sell the movie without giving it away”

Bad Feeling Magazine: The consensus seems to be that it’s best to go into Barbarian knowing as little as possible, which I guess makes both of our jobs a little bit more difficult today. Was it intentional to keep the film’s twists a secret and let fans experience them in the theater?

Zach Cregger: Yeah, well, there was nothing intentional about the writing of this movie. What I mean is, I didn’t set out to write a movie, I set out to write just a scene, and it was going to be just for me, I was never going to send it to anyone. And I just tried to turn my mind off and follow my fingers and my subconscious, and if I could surprise myself then I was having fun.

So, all of these twists and turns really just came from me being interested in surprising myself. I was my own audience member and so if I didn’t know where it was going, there’s no way the audience would know where it was going. So, that was kind of my north star for the writing of this. And then you know, once we got into production and marketing and all that stuff, then you know, it becomes a delicate sort of a dance to try and sell the movie without giving it away. But I’m really proud of what they’ve done so far. I think that they’ve done a good job of advertising the tone without giving away the goods.

A Trailer That Doesn’t Spoil the Surprise

I was curious if you were involved in the marketing because I generally find trailers give away much too much these days. But the trailers for this film have been so smart and clever.

I agree. I agree. Look, I wish I could take credit for it, but honestly, the Disney team, they were on the same page as me from the get-go about how they don’t want to spoil this movie. You know, they were very solicitous of my opinion and the trailer but they cut the trailer that’s out there and it is better than the trailer I would have cut. When they showed that to me I was like, “Guys, go with god, this is it.” I think we made two tiny changes. They’re experts, so I was just able to coast. [Laughs]

Zach Cregger Used Transcendental Meditation to Help Develop the Film

The film’s structure is also really interesting. In some ways, it’s almost like a series of vignettes; is that something you subconsciously brought with you from sketch comedy?

Well, that’s interesting. I’ve never thought of it as a product of my time in sketch, but it does make sense. Wow, you’re kind of blowing my mind right now. I really didn’t think as I was writing this, so maybe the operative word here is the subconscious. You know, David Lynch has that great book called Catching the Big Fish. I don’t know if you’re familiar, but his writing process is just about transcendental meditation and then using what you get in that subconscious dream state to put into the film. And I really tried to use that, for the writing of this. I don’t know if it comes from my sketch comedy past or if it comes from meditation or what it comes from, but this is what it is.

The Influence of Sam Raimi

Were there any film touchstones for yourself or that you showed the cast and crew to illustrate the different tones that you wanted at different points in the film?

Well, Sam Raimi for sure was a big one. Drag Me to Hell, Evil Dead 2, are movies that really float effortlessly from broad big slapstick comedy to like, pure terror. And sometimes you can’t even tell which one you’re in and then it’ll turn on a dime. So, I knew that it was possible. I knew I didn’t need to worry about it, that it wasn’t anything to avoid. Also, Jordan Peele, you know, Get Out, I think it really, really expertly nails comedy and horror. So, I’m not breaking new ground here with that sort of stuff. But I made my DP watch a lot of Sam Raimi movies.

Red Flags Galore

In some ways, one of the tensest scenes in the film is early on with Georgina and Bill in the Airbnb. You really don’t know — especially if you don’t know anything about the film — you’re not sure where the film is going, and you’re not sure what his intentions are. I read that you wanted to put as many red flags in that scene as possible; what was your intention with that sequence?

I just knew that if I could give him as many little micro — not aggressions, but little, just little warning signs. Those can be subtle things like, you know, he makes her tea when she says she doesn’t want tea, you know? He says, “Oh, that’s a pretty name.” That’s not an appropriate comment to make in a situation like this. He insists on bringing her luggage and he’s touching her things when she doesn’t want him to. All of these by themselves are not necessarily, you know, sinister, and nefarious, but like in concert with each other, it paints a portrait of a man who is not respecting her boundaries.

And so I just wanted to kind of play with that. And I figured if I did my job, right, hopefully, the idea would be that most women who watched this would identify with this situation. I just wanted to put the viewer in her mindset. She’s a detective, you know, she has to categorize his behavior. She has to assess everything. She’s hyper-vigilant. So that was the goal.

Justin Long as a Scumbg

What went into the decision to include the rape allegation against Justin’s character? When most people see Justin on camera, they think, Oh, it’s my friend. And then it gets tricky, so you’re playing with our expectations there.

You know, that’s the point of hiring Justin. You know, not every rapist looks like what we all imagined a rapist to look like. I think more often than not, these bad actors can be really charming, likable, non-threatening people. I think that’s actually how they get away with some of the stuff that can happen. It’s a scarier character if it’s played by Justin Long than if it was played by some dude who excels at being a villain. And so to me, he’s the perfect actor for that role.

“I don’t want to watch a woman be tortured in a movie”

There are many ways you could have went with dealing with the backstory of the characters; we get some info but we don’t necessarily get everything. Did you go back and forth about how much you wanted to reveal to the audience?

I mean, the flashback sequence came a little bit later I’d finished the movie in my mind, but it didn’t have the flashback scene and you know, a criticism I got on the script was that it needs one more element, one more dimension. And so I thought of the ’80s [flashback].

I never wanted to see more than we see. I don’t want to watch a woman be tortured in a movie. I feel like that day has gone and I’m happy to see it go. Now, it’s still an integral part of the story. But we don’t need to delight in evisceration anymore. I have gore in the movie, you know, but it’s a story point.

So, that backstory, I think that the location is as much a character as our actors are. And so you need to know how these tunnels came to be and why they exist and how the Mother came to be, so, I’m glad it’s in there.

Big Gore on a Low-Budget

Were you able to get everything you wanted into the film? Did you try to balance how far you wanted to take the film before potentially losing the audience?

I didn’t think so much about losing the audience. I did have much more extreme gore planned and we filmed some stuff. You know, the first death in the movie got way more graphic. But we had limited time. This is a very low-budget film, like this is a very low budget film. If it didn’t work the first time, it didn’t work the second time, we got to go. So, we stopped.

And there was another scene where, you know, there’s the nursing scene. Well, we originally shot a scene where she snatches up a rat, chews it, and then pries open his mouth and baby birds him. That was a good, gnarly scene. But there was no way of showing that without getting an up-close look at her. And you know, you don’t want to see the shark before the end of the movie. It’s a good lesson. I just realized that I can’t keep that sequence and maintain the mystery around this character. So it had to go.

The Brutal Death Scene We’ll Never See

Do you think we’ll see any of those cut scenes on a future home video release?

Yeah, we’ve collected them. Disney asked for some deleted scenes, so they’ve been submitted, hopefully, on Blu-ray or when you buy it on iTunes, they’ll be there so you can see them.

You won’t see the super graphic initial death. [Laughs] His jaw was ripped off and then his jawbone was shoved into his own eye socket. That was when I realized that your jaw is wider than your eye socket. So there was no way of — we really tried to figure out how to get it in there. We couldn’t do it, so that you won’t see.

Barbarian is in theatres now.