I just love folk horror and I love intense movies with story settled somewhere in the middle or nowhere or in countryside. When Barbarians start, the intro looks like another Celtic heritage folk horror movie, with luxurious house being built and sold on a piece of land where powerful Celtic ancient rock brings forth its power. We switch to Adam(Iwan Rheon – of Game Of Thrones, his excellent role playing Bastard of Bolton) and Eve (excellent Catalina Sandino Moreno of Che, A Most Violent Year…). Adam is somehow insecure writer whose birthday falls on this evening and him and Eve await friends to join them for dinner and celebration at this wonderful new mansion that they are buying, their dream house. We see some supernatural segments with wounded dying fox that leads us on a false trail that this is a folk horror tale. Finally, friends Lucas(Tom Cullen) and Chloe(Ines Spiridonov) arrive and what seems like a fun dinner somehow turns into a fight where some dirty secrets of our protagonists surface and nothing is what it seems. Then, three ominous masked men invade the house and carnage starts…

This little movie is directed, written and produced by Charles Dorfman who produced King´s Speech, The Lost Daughter, Honest Thief…and it was fun to watch because it led me to many corners leaving me surprised and waiting for more. It first led me to be folk horror, drama, psychological thriller and home invasion movie with twists here and there thrown in successfully right to bloody ending of the movie which left some questions in my head, but that is only me. The cast did a good job, especially Rheon and Moreno portraying weak Adam and dominating Eve. Movie is cut into segments like chapters and it has no fillers, it was nice to watch and not yawn for a second. The only thing was that the three masked villains could be explained a bit more, although they are connected to Lucas and his deeds. Lucas is slimy, lying, scummy character and I love how they managed to make me hate this character and love Adam and Eve. This movie is almost perfect, there are some things lacking, but fun to watch nonetheless.

8/10