Photo: EW
This weekend, moviegoers got a look at another mystical horror film. Zach Kreger’s Barbarian premiere was a killer at the box office.
Comscore reports that the actor’s directorial debut premiered at $10 million.
In the horror film, Georgina Campbell plays Tess, a young woman who discovers that the rental house she has booked is already occupied by a stranger, Keith (Bill Skarsgård). Reluctantly, Tess stays the night and later discovers there is more to fear than an unexpected guest.
Receiving very positive feedback from critics and a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes after all its twists and turns, Barbarian also stars Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis and James Butler.
“It was so engaging, so scary,” Long, who plays an embattled actor with his own connections to the house of horror rentals, said in an interview with EW at the Comic-Con this year. “I mean, scary and unexpected.”
He added: “I’ve read a lot of horror scripts, and I’ve done a few of those movies, so it’s very rare to find something that breaks the convention and is that unique and original.”
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Barbarian is the First
Cregger recently revealed that he received advice from director and friend Jordan Peele, who has embarked on the same path as comedian-turned-horror-filmmaker.
“He spent a lot of time with me before I went to Bulgaria to shoot the movie,” Cregger said in an interview with Variety. “He gave me a crash course on how to handle the inevitable challenges, and that was so valuable.”
He continued, “I don’t think horror and comedy are too dissimilar. The anatomy of a scare is very similar to the anatomy of a laugh. It’s all about timing and tone and zigging when the audience expects you to zag. I feel like my time in sketch comedy had equipped me to play in this pool.”
Barbarian is not the only new film that saw a huge box office success this weekend. Brahmastra Part 1: Shiva, an Indian Hindi-language fantasy adventure directed by Ayan Mukerji, opened just behind Barbarian at No. 2 with $4.4 million.
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