This weekend, another mysterious horror film was buzzed by viewers. Zach Cregger’s Barbarian had a big box office preview.
The actor’s directorial debut opened atop $10 million, according to Comscore’s report.
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.
Barbarian, which garnered great critical acclaim and earned a 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating for its twists, also includes Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis, and Jaymes 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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Cregger’s First Horror: Barbarian
Recently, Cregger revealed that he received advice from director and friend Jordan Peele, who also took the same path as a comedian turned horror film director.
“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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