10 Most Sudden Deaths In Horror Movies You Never Saw Coming

Zach Cregger's stunning directorial debut Barbarian is a film entirely concerned with upending expectations, and that it certainly does in its mesmerising first act in bluntly ultra-violent fashion.

The film begins with a young woman, Tess (Georgina Campbell), arriving at her Airbnb booking in a run-down area of Detroit, only to find that the house has been double-booked with a man, Keith (Bill Skarsgård), who is already inside.

Against her wiser instincts yet with no other immediate options, Tess decides to go inside, and after some awkward introductions, she agrees to stay overnight until the matter is resolved.

Given Skarsgård's iconic performance as Pennywise in the recent It movies, audiences were basically conditioned to be wary of him here, not to mention the obvious danger of a woman spending the night with a suspect man she doesn't know.

But this turns out to be a total misdirect, as the real danger is a secret basement hidden inside the property. After Tess discovers it, Keith decides to head down and doesn't return.

Tess then heads down after hearing him scream and eventually finds him in a tunnel, where he tells Tess that somebody else is down there with them.

The pair argue over which way to go, just as Keith is suddenly grabbed from behind and has his head repeatedly smashed into the wall by a gigantic, mutated, naked woman, killing him instantly.

Though it wasn't exactly a surprise that something untoward was lurking in the tunnels, few expected Keith to get dispatched so abruptly, and with such shockingly violent force.

That he was really just a nice, regular guy after all only made his grim demise that much more disturbing.