The Barbarian-- My take on the movie with spoilers!

 PLOT: A woman finds out that not only is her Airbnb house double-booked but that the house is not what it seems.

You want a break. You've booked that Airbnb. Everything is set. You reach there after a long drive and guess what, someone is already staying there.

Worse, no one is picking up the phone to sort out this issue.

Things get worse. The house has some secrets of its own.

Suddenly, it's about fighting to stay alive.

Considering the several horror movies based on Airbnbs, how much longer before people decide it is better to live in hotels where there is security and people know what is going on in their hotel and who is actually living in there.

Until then, it is up for debate whether Airbnbs are more feasible or hotels.

THE BARBARIAN Plot

One rainy night, Tess arrives at 467 Barbary Street and parks in front of a house. She's clearly looking for a much-needed break and avoids calls.

She gets out and checks the box. After attempting to enter the code and failing, she finally gets it open and is surprised to see no key inside. She tries to make a call to the booker but of course, no one picks up. As she is about to leave, she sees a movement and light.

She rings the bell and it is a man who appears groggy. He has just been woken up because the fuss Tess has been making outside.

Tess goes on about how she booked the house. The man tells her that he booked it too via a different booking site. He introduces himself as Keith and seems apologetic.

Tess is wary though. She checks his booking to make sure he isn't lying. When he invites her in to figure it all out, she hesitates.

Keith manages to convince her to come in and offers to make her some tea while she looks at some hotels. Of course their bookers are not picking up to sort out this mess.

Tess looks at the tea but doesn't drink it. She even uses the bathroom and eyes the electric brush put on charge and on the floor. The electric brush is going to remain there for the rest of the movie.

Keith lets Tess stay the night and gives up his room. Tess isn't going to sleep on dirty sheets so they are washed.

She goes into the bedroom and finds Keith's wallet. She immediately takes a photo of his ID.

Isn't it weird how she is overly cautious but Keith is nice and well-mannered? Why hasn't he asked to see her ID?

He waits for her at the table after she is done snooping around in his wallet. He tells her he saw her not drink the tea since she didn't see him make it. But he now wants to open the bottle of wine in front of her so that she can see he isn't spiking it.

Tess still refuses the wine but does sit with him. They get to talking and being friendly. Keith even shows her how to put the quilt cover on, a necessary skill to have.

Tess sleeps easy, knowing that Keith is a good guy. In the middle of the night, she awakens to find the door partly open. She calls out to Keith who doesn't respond. She goes into the living room where Keith is sleeping uncomfortably on the couch. She wakes him up when she hears him murmur and he is startled and pissed off to see her.

She meekly makes excuses about him opening the bedroom door and he denies doing that. He was sleeping. She woke him up!

Tess goes back to bed and wakes up late enough the next morning to miss seeing Keith.  She heads to her meeting which turns out to be a success. The woman she is meeting is friendly but the minute Tess tells her where she is staying, the woman warns her about the neighborhood not being so ideal to stay in.

Tess cleanly didn't do her research when she came to stay here. Or she found a good deal and didn't bother with meagre things such as the location of the house.

Clearly, Tess is rattled by this when she heads home. Even more so when a homeless man comes running up behind her to tell her to get out of the house.

Tess barely manages to get in and then realizes that even though Keith told her to leave the key for him in the lock box outside. She brought it in.

She goes wandering about the house and thinks she hears some noises. When she goes into the basement, she doesn't find anything unusual. But then she finds a rope coming out from a hole and decides to test it out.

That's when a secret door opens. Tess is overly cautious and isn't about to just walk into the dark tunnels that has been exposed. She finds a mirror and leans it against the chair. The mirror reflects the ceiling light and throws it into the tunnels.

By this time the door closes and Tess realizes that it doesn't open. She sits on the stairs in despair and we see her phone is on the kitchen table and the key is in her pocket.

Tess realizes her folly but then decides to investigate the tunnels. She come upon a room that has a stained mattress and a camera nearby. Someone was filming a depraved act it would seem. There's even a bucket inside. No doubt it was used as a toilet by someone?

She sees a bloody handprint on the wall and assumes what we have assumed: someone was held captive here and tortured.

Tess freaks out but remembers she is trapped in the basement that has another secret entrance. This leads downstairs somewhere.

Just then Keith arrives and she tries to get his attention through the window. He finally sees her and opens the door.

Tess is frantic as she explains what she saw. Keith doesn't believe her. He hasn't taken a picture of her and looked at it like Tess did before her meeting. He isn't ready to believe a story from a woman he just met and decides to investigate it himself.

Tess is too frightened to join him amd when the basement door starts to creak close again, she manages to stick a chair in between so that it stays put.

When she calls out for Keith and he doesn’t respond. She braves into the tunnels again and realizes he went further downstairs into the tunnels.

She uses a torch and goes after him. He's the man she secretly took a photo of and is crushing on.

She finally hears Keith call for help and rushes over only to find him crawling and saying someone in the tunnels.

Before Tess can say anything, a creature comes by and bashes Keith's head against the wall. That's the end of Keith.

But what about Tess? She's dead, right?

Don't worry, the answer will be revealed in twenty minutes or so.

Time to move onto the next character.

Meet AJ. He's driving along the coast, on top of the world. The pilot of his new show has just been picked up. Life couldn’t get any better, could it?

AJ should have known better than to think life can only be about the highs. He gets a call from his colleagues who tell him to prepare himself for some bad news. The actress that was working on the show has accused him of misconduct.

AJ denies he did anything wrong and calls the actress a liar. But of course no one believes him considering the seriousness of the issue. He is dropped from the project that was his and told that he is being sued.

AJ goes to meet his accountant to discuss how much finances he has left to fight the case as well as counter sue. Not much, he is told. The accountant also no longer wants anything to do with him.

AJ decides to sell off his properties and flies off to another state. He is advised by his colleague that he shouldn't have done that. AJ tells him he needs the money.

Later, he meets a friend who asks him if the rumors are true. AJ admits that the actress wasn't into it at first but then came around.

Okay, so in this case the MeToo accusation is accurate.

He then visits the office that was handling the bookings for his house at Barbary house. Guess who was the owner of the house Tess and Keith had been living in?

Yup, it was AJ! He wants to get into his house and asks for the keys.

When he goes to the house he is not pleased by the items scattered about. He also notices the electric toothbrush in the bathroom. He wonders if anyone has still been living here. He removes the chair holding the basement door and then finds Tess' things.

He calls the booking agent to find out for sure whether the people who were living here had indeed vacated. No idea, he is told.

Curious, AJ goes to the basement to make sure there aren’t any squatters. He finds the mirror leaning on the chair and then the rope.

The secret door opens and he ventures inside.

He is super excited to see so much extra space. He goes upstairs to find out if the basement can add extra value to his house. Hopefully he can get a much better price for it.

He takes a measuring tape with him and happily goes inside the tunnels. He walks past the room with the stained mattress and camera.

That isn't important anymore.

He comes across a room with a TV that is playing videos on how to feed babies.

He still thinks nothing of it until his measuring tape gets stuck. That's when the creature residing in the tunnels reveals itself.

AJ runs about and then falls into a pit. He is about to scream when Tess appears and covers his mouth.

Yay! She's alive. But how and why?

Tess explains how that creature is actually a human who thinks she's a mother and is just super obsessed with babies. All AJ needs to do to survive is pretend to be a good little baby and take his feedings. AJ is grossed out about it.

The creature comes to feed and Tess obediently sucks from the bottle. AJ is not going to do the same. The bottle is disgusting and besides Tess fed from it. No way!

We then meet another character. This time from the past.

It is sometime in the 1980s and a man called Frank goes to a store. The neighbors all know him and give friendly waves.

Frank drives to a store to get diapers and is helped by a woman.

Later, he watches a young woman put her groceries in her car and drive away. Frank follows her.

He then parks a little away from her house and then gets down to open his trunk and remove a  uniform.

He pretends to be an electrician to gain entry into that woman's house. She lets him in and he immediately goes to her bathroom and unlocks the window.

Since we see Frank enter that very house AJ bought, we must assume that Frank followed women, abducted them and then took them to his basement where he filmed them as he forced himself on them.

Frank was truly twisted. His actions were truly barbaric.

Cut to the present and we see that after AJ refused to take his feeding, the creature jumped into the pit to pamper Tess but shriek at AJ. Bad baby! He needs to learn from the other baby!

AJ takes a chance to climb over the creature. He and Tess manage to get out of the pit but the creature is hot on their heels. Tess manages to reach the window while the creature snatches up AJ.

The homeless man from before helps Tess out and then tells her how he had tried to warn her. Tess wants to go back to save AJ but the homeless man tells her she is lucky to escape that house.

Tess tries to be a hero by calling the cops who automatically assume she takes drugs. Tess tries to reason with them but the cops believe that there are only junkies in the neighborhood.

Tess realizes it is pointless to convince them and lets them go. The homeless man tells her how they need to clear the streets after it gets dark as that is when the creature comes out.

Since Tess' car keys are in the house, she waits until it is dark and once she gets her keys, she drives away only for the creature to come out. Tess uses her car to pin the creature against the house.

She then goes running in.

Meanwhile, AJ has found another room where he finds a sickly man on a bed. He gives him some water and promises him to help him escape. We know that the man is Frank.

AJ snoops around and finds videos. He puts in one and is shocked to discover that they are videos of Frank being violent with women. AJ calls him sick even though he is pretty much in the same boat.

Frank has a ghn with him which he uses to shoot himself in the head with. AJ takes the gun and runs. He is startled when he hears his name being called and accidentally shoots Tess.

Nope, she's not dead. He got her somewhere on the side.

He helps her out of the house and Tess notices that the creature is no longer pinned to the house. She tells AJ to go to the homeless man who offers them a place to sit on the other side of the fence.

The homeless man narrates the story of how Frank would force himself on women, get them pregnant and then repeat the cycle when the child was old enough. The creature is a result of years of inbreeding.

Before they can do anything else, the creature comes and rips the homeless man's arm and kills him with it.

THE BARBARIAN Ending Explained with Spoilers!

Tess and AJ do some running around and climb a water tower. The creature is climbing quickly too. AJ comes up with an ingenious plan to save his skin after he drops the gun to shoot the creature with.

He tosses Tess off the railing because he knows the creature is obsessed with Tess as she thinks of her as her baby.

Tess feels betrayed but just as AJ predicted, the creature lunges to catch her.

AJ peers down and we see the creature laying on the ground and Tess atop it.

AJ goes to give his feeble excuses about all of this being his plan but the creature gets up and squishes his eyes in. Then she cracks his head.

Tess has gotten hold of the gun and when the creature comes to her, Tess almost feels sorry for her. But it is all about survival and so Tess shoots the creature.

The creature dies and Tess pushes her off and manages to get away.

Tess will think twice before ever going to stay in an Airbnb.

The movie ends.

The Barbarian was truly a gripping horror movie and fortunately doesn't drag not becomes convoluted as the characters are introduced throughout the story.

One of the best horror movies of 2022 for sure.

SCARE SCALE: 4/5