Posted in: 20th Century Studios, Horror, Movies | Tagged: Barbarian, bill skarsgard, georgina campbell, horror, horror comedy, justin long, quote, Red Flags, Zach Cregger

Barbarian: Zach Cregger Discusses That Scene Full Of "Tiny Red Flags"

Zach Cregger, writer & director of the newly released Barbarian, spoke about some of the influences behind some of the moments in the film that felt like warnings from the very beginning. In an interview with Trevor Shand from the Bloody Discussing Boo Crew podcast, Cregger ended up giving a look inside some of his deciding factors regarding the interaction between Tess (Georgina Campbell) and Keith (Bill Skarsgård).

In Barbarian, a young woman traveling to Detroit for a job interview books a rental home. But when she arrives late at night, she discovers that the house is double booked, and a strange man is already staying there. Against her better judgment, she decides to spend the evening, but soon discovers that there's a lot more to fear than just an unexpected house guest.

In an interview alongside Campbell and Justin Long, Cregger spoke about his initial spark of inspiration. "I had read a book called the Gift of Fear by the security consultant Gavin de Becker. There was a chapter in the book that was really primarily directed towards women, and he was encouraging women to pay attention to these little minor red flags that men can give off in day-to-day situations. They can be very innocuous things that you might not notice. Things like complimenting you when it's not necessarily appropriate or doing you a favor that you didn't ask for, or touching in a nonsexual way that's not initiated by you," Cregger revealed. "All these little things that seemingly don't matter, but he was basically saying the gift of fear, it's important to pay attention to these little red flags because you're equipped with that to identify potential threats. As I was reading it, I just kind of had this epiphany that I don't ever have to think about that kind of a thing because I'm a man and because I have this level of privilege where I just don't have to consider that half the population might be somebody that means to do me harm for no reason. I just realized I occupy a completely different psychic landscape than most women do. It was kind of a big moment for me."

"I just wanted to write a scene where I could load as many of those little tiny red flags into an interaction as possible," he continued. "It was an exercise for me to do late at night in my garage where I am right now. It's always a double-booked Airbnb, and I'll make this guy really nice, but I will give him a ton of these little triggers, and it was really fun, and that was the impetus. I just let myself kind of follow my nose, and I didn't think about where it was going to go ever. I figured my rule was, if I'm surprising myself, then I have to be surprising the audience. As long as I have no long plan, then no one could know what's coming and so let's just see how it goes, and this is the movie that came out of it."

From 20th Century Studios and New Regency, Barbarian stars Campbell, Skarsgård, Long, Matthew Patrick Davis, Richard Brake, Jaymes Butler & Kurt Braunohler. The film was written and directed by Cregger. The producers are Arnon Milchan, Roy Lee, Raphael Margules and J.D. Lifshitz. Yariv Milchan, Michael Schaefer, Natalie Lehmann, Danny Chan, Alex Lebovici, and Skarsgård are the film's executive producers. Barbarian is now exclusively in theaters.

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