AJ just so happens to own that same home on Barbary Street and walks in to find all of Tess’ and Keith’s belongings still in the home. In an effort to scrounge up money to pay legal fees, he aims to sell some of his property. It’s the marked differences in socialization, and overconfidence in their own safety, that brings each of the men to their demise.ĪJ finds his way to Detroit after being forced to confront his financial strife in the aftermath of rape allegations. Women are often socialized to constantly watch over their shoulder and to regard unfamiliar men with caution.
This first act does a brilliant job at establishing the female gaze that governs most of the film. She even remarks how, if roles were reversed, Keith would have just settled right in without a second thought. Once Tess and Keith are able to interact on a human basis, she relaxes enough to explain to him how many precautions she had to take before calming down, while he never particularly felt as though his safety was ever in jeopardy. To a large extent, his casting forces the audience to further empathize with Tess’ perspective in thinking that something bad will inevitably happen. Skarsgård’s reputation as a horror villain automatically puts the audience on edge when he opens the door.
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RELATED: 'The Skin I Live In' and 'In a Glass Cage' Elevate the Captivity Drama Casting Bill Skarsgård as Keith was genius in this regard considering his role as the iconic Pennywisein the recent It movies. If Tess didn’t already think he drugged her tea, she sure as hell became a bit more suspicious of him after his painfully awkward assertion that he had no intention to drug her while opening a bottle of wine. Nearly every attempt Keith makes to help Tess feel more comfortable makes him seem more suspicious to both Tess and the audience.
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She carefully excuses herself to the bathroom and takes the chance to take a picture of his license and takes a look inside his toiletry bag.
At first, she thinks he might’ve broken in and proceeds to snoop around. From the moment they realize the rental is double booked, Tess instantly sees Keith as suspicious, whereas he seems a little too hell-bent on proving that he’s no threat to her. Alarm bells immediately start ringing in Tess’ head. After panicking for a second, a random guy named Keith ( Bill Skarsgård) opens the door and informs her that he’s staying there. All seems pretty normal until she opens up the lockbox and the keys are missing. Don’t worry, we’ll unpack this together.Īt the very beginning of Barbarian, we meet Tess as she pulls up to the home she rented for her stay in Detroit. After all, it’s hard to believe that the Mother ( Matthew Patrick Davis) would have ever willingly let a man kill her. In fact, the finale relies on the fact that the last one standing is a woman. The ending to Barbarian, however, isn’t the obligatory satisfaction of the final girl trope it seems to be. But what’s a final girl without any cuts or bruises? After being held in captivity and relentlessly chased throughout the second and third acts of the film, Tess’ survival seems to almost beg the audience to suspend belief.
Despite all odds, Tess emerges from beneath the bowels of Barbary Street (mostly) intact– at least she keeps her eyes. So it’s not at all surprising that the last person left standing in Zach Cregger’s film Barbarianis our heroine Tess ( Georgina Campbell).
Over time, many have become exasperated with the predictability of the final girl’s survival or have written long think pieces on how the trope serves to further subjugate women by attributing the final girl’s survivability as contingent to her virtuousness. Our final girl is the badass who confronts the killer at the end of the film and lives on to fight another day, that is, if she doesn’t die in the sequel. Anyone even remotely familiar with horror movies knows the final girl trope.
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