10 More Moments That Literally Stopped Horror Movies
5. Keith's Death - Barbarian
Barbarian was one of last year's most talked about horror films for very good reason. Above all else, it's a movie which benefits from knowing little about it beforehand, because writer-director Zach Cregger sure has some deranged surprises in store.
The story begins conventionally enough, with protagonist Tess (Georgina Campbell) turning up to her Airbnb house to find it apparently double-booked by Keith (Bill Skarsgård), a man she's immediately suspicious of.
Eventually Keith is able to bring Tess' guard down and the pair agree to stay at the place together until the matter can be resolved. However, they eventually find a secret tunnel in the house's basement, where Keith ends up going missing.
Tess subsequently heads down there to find him, but moments after they're reunited, Keith has his head smashed into a gory pulp by a large, mutated naked woman residing down there.
Before either Tess or the audience has any time to process what they've just seen, however, Cregger cuts to black and the scene jarringly shifts to an entirely different setting to introduce us to AJ (Justin Long), the owner of the house.
The majority of the second act doesn't feature Tess at all, as we're brought up to speed on both AJ and the original owner of the house, Frank (Richard Brake), before finally getting back to the fallout of Keith's death.