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When Barbarian hit movie theaters in the fall of 2022, it had an electricity that plenty of movies since have tried and failed to recapture. Writer-director Zach Cregger starts with what seems like a slow-burn treatise on the constant watchfulness that women must affect, as Tess (Georgia Campbell) arrives at an Airbnb in Detroit to find it double-booked with a guy named Keith (Bill Skarsgård). It’s late, and there’s room for both to stay, but can she trust him? That question opens up to another when Tess finds a door in the house’s basement; and still another when the movie cuts to a seemingly unrelated story, taking its time in circling back to how and why it connects to the house where Tess and Keith are investigating… something.
Part of the movie’s excitement, then, was its hairpin unpredictability – horror movies have so many tropes, and franchises, and ripoffs, that a movie so original (even in its various and clear influences) felt like a balm. Smartly, Cregger did not immediately plan a fast-turnaround sequel to Barbarian; Companion, which he produced, almost functioned as that, with its own (less thrilling) pivots. It was fine, both as a horror-comedy, and as a means of absorbing any been-there-done-that feelings about Barbarian.
So what happens if that stand-alone movie from a fresh talent has secretly inspired a cinematic universe?
In the wake of Barbarian, Cregger’s own follow-up project Weapons became an object of great interest, especially within the horror fandom. Described repeatedly and vaguely as a Magnolia-like horror epic, little else was known about Weapons until recently, when marketing began to ramp up in advance of its August debut. (Originally set to come out in January 2026, it was moved forward to August in a big Warner Bros. date shuffle – a sign of confidence, to be sure.) A teaser trailer just dropped today, but the only other piece of marketing out there so far is a fake, intentionally homemade-looking website called Maybrook News, which reports on the simultaneous (and seemingly voluntary) disappearance of 17 local children, which has been announced as the premise to the new film. The only other article on the site refers to the aftermath of Barbarian, mentioning the character Tess by name.
The bare-bones layout of the page and the small number of stories seems like an indication that Maybrook could be near Detroit. (There isn’t actually a Maybrook in Michigan; there is one in Orange County, New York.) Then again, this could just be an easy-to-find Easter egg indicating that these two stories come from the same filmmaker. After all, Barbarian and Weapons don’t even hail from the same studio; the former was put out by Disney’s Fox, while Weapons is from Warner’s New Line imprint.
It could also be more akin to what filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson have done in the past, making reference to characters across their movies without formally connecting them. Anderson’s first movie, Hard Eight, makes reference to character names that turn up in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Tarantino’s movies have plenty of interconnections, like the fake brand Red Apple cigarettes, or the surname Vega, shared between Michael Madsen’s character in Reservoir Dogs and John Travolta’s in Pulp Fiction. (A supposed Vega Brothers movie never materialized.) If the internet in its current form had existed in 1996, the “news” posts about the cinematic universes afoot would have been insufferable, blowing some neat little connections into full-blown conspiracies.
So let’s not assume Zach Cregger is crafting the Barbarianverse quite yet. He may specifically be throwing back to a less franchised time. And if he succeeds in doing so, maybe that’ll be the first step in calming down about movie universes that have so rarely actually panned out.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
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