20 Horror Films Where Humans Are The Real Monsters

Zach Cregger’s Barbarian is a film of many twists and contradictions, intentionally toying with convention and doing everything to subvert expectations and keep us on our toes. And the first of those expectations goes out the window in its opening. 

We join Tess and Keith (Georgina Campbell and Bill Skarsgård) in an Airbnb, which they seem to have double-booked. Lacking other options, and in lieu of an absent landlord, the pair agree to share the place for the night, thus setting up Keith as the villain… except he isn’t. Instead, there’s something lurking under the house: the monstrous, hulking creature known as the Mother (Matthew Patrick Davis) that comes out at night and abducts Keith. So, this is the villain, and Tess is our protagonist, right?

Wrong.

Tess is abducted, and the focus is thrown to AJ (Justin Long), the sleazy Hollywood actor who owns the house, where he absconds to get away from his bad press. Here, he uncovers the underground caverns and Frank (Richard Brake), a bedridden man living there who created the subterranean monster by repeatedly breeding with his own children. So, AJ’s our protagonist, right?

Well, no, actually, because after he links up with Tess, AJ turns out to be almost as devious as the man who created the monster, betraying her to save his own skin. And the “monster” herself? She’s just the unfortunate product of generations of inbreeding and captivity, and only wants a child to care for.