The Barn (2018)

The Barn (2019)

Dir. Matt Beurois

Writers: Auregan, Matt Beurois

Starring Ken Samuels, Guillaume Faure, Piper Lincoln, Auregan

The Amazon Prime summary of THE BARN reads, "A serial killer strikes Sugar Grove, Virginia. As the number of victims increases, a journalist is send [sic] to cover the story. Her investigation will shake the local comm..."  [it cuts off there, as though the writer was suddenly struck down in mid-sentence by the very serial killer he or she was summarizing]

Now, two things about that blurb caught my notice.

First, I want to draw your attention to the fucking balls it takes for one of the world's largest corporations to give so little of a shit about their streaming service that they would include a typo in the two-and-a-half sentence plot summary. It’s only 29 words, for fuck’s sake, can we just do one fucking readthrough before we click “publish”? Second, I noticed the prominence of Sugar Grove, VA in the synopsis, which made me laugh because I've lived in or around Virginia for something like 30 years now and had never heard of such a place, making one wonder why the blurb-writer thought it was such a huge selling point. I assumed that it was either a patronizing name some Hollywood dirtbag made up for a dimly imagined Real America, or, hopefully, it was a real place and this movie was one of those small-town regional horror movies made by some amateur first-time filmmaker who got the whole town to participate. "Let's look it up," said I, capriciously. "If it turn out it's a real place, we'll watch this piece of shit."

Well, turns out Sugar Grove is a census-designated place (CDP) in Smyth County, Virginia, United States. The population was 758 at the 2010 census. We watched the movie.

Unfortunately THE BARN does not turn out to be a passion project of the residents of Sugar Grove, Virginia. Instead, two very unexpected things become clear almost immediately. First, it’s actually a French production, meaning the residents of “Sugar Grove, Virginia” will be played entirely by French actors, each with their own unique idea of what they imagine an American accent (let alone a Sugar Grove, Virginia accent) might sound like. Definitely was not expecting that. Second, it’s actually a zombie movie at least as much (and probably more) than it is a serial killer movie (and in fact, it’s not really either, but first things first).

            We’ll actually get to the zombies long before we get to the serial killer. Although the trailers barely hint at zombies and the plot summary ignores them completely, the film opens in the traditional Zombie Movie style. By which I mean, an opening montage of fictional news reports to bring us up to speed, which starts with real footage of the World Trade Center exploding (!) and then tells us that “one year after 9/11” a zombie outbreak started affecting the world’s children. They have a quick clip of Obama saying the phrase “CDC” (so looks like he still got elected, even in the midst of a zombie nightmare!) and then they tell us that the infected kids have been isolated in camps somewhere in Texas, and that the contagion has been contained, although it darkly implies that many people may not have been happy to have their zombie children snatched and quarantined by the army. And just in case opening with footage from fucking 9/11 wasn’t on-the-nose enough, it then cuts directly to a full-screen shot of a large American flag, hung over the door of a sinister THE BARN. So yeah, I’m thinking this might be some kind of political metaphor.

            But wait, so this is, what, a serial killer movie set in a world where a zombie outbreak has happened, but is now over? Don’t worry, I’ll explain. You see, this particular THE BARN is owned by local Sugar Grove resident Gil Perry (Ken Samuels, who had a bit part in DOUBLE TEAM and appears to be attempting something approximating the Cajun accent Seagal used to do on Steven Seagal: Lawman), and despite its ramshackle appearance this building is important to the plot in that it is currently housing small flock of zombie youngsters, who Gil has been hiding from the authorities and training not to be so bitey (including co-writer and French singer-songwriter Auregan). Gil's mute brother Earl (Yannik Mazzilli, OPIUM, whose American accent must have been too untenable even for this movie), lives there too, but seems to hate the zombies for reasons which are never explained, and likes to throw stones at the barn when Gil’s not looking. He also has a penchant for standing around in the background of scenes menacingly holding a chainsaw. Did I mention there’s a serial killer on the loose?

        But wait, what about the serial killer? I was just getting to that. Turns out that somebody has been murdering the local women of Sugar Grove, VA, (I think they say there have been something like 15 murders!) which has been causing local sheriff Benjamin Clarkson (Guillaume Faure, “reluctant surgeon” in DR. STRANGE, sporting a Pepé Le Pew accent so outrageous that one of the characters is forced to comment on it, a fact made even more absurd when the dialogue makes it clear he grew up in Sugar Grove!) to crouch next to the bodies, staring thoughtfully into the middle distance. Which, if I have learned anything from movie cops, is like 60% of what detectives do during any given day.

The murders have also brought a nosey reporter from Richmond, VA (Piper Lincoln, daughter of Lar Park-Lincoln of FRIDAY THE 13th PART VII fame, but perhaps less an actress than “an American exchange student who happened to be staying near the French filming location”), who keeps trying for an interview with the sheriff or Gil or somebody, bless her little heart. Richmond is well in excess of 4 hours away from Sugar Grove (approximately the same amount of time it’d take to drive from Paris to Cologne, to put it in terms that the filmmakers could relate to), so you gotta give credit to this local news station for making the effort. Especially since poor Sheriff “Clarkson” seems to be the only law enforcement anywhere in sight, despite the fact that 15 murders is almost 2% of the total population of Sugar Grove!* But I guess the feds are busy with the zombie camps and all that.

            Anyway, all this happens by the 10 minute mark. Which raises the eternal question: “What the fuck is this movie actually about?”

This is a question which you could fairly put to a critic like me, because it is part and parcel to this noble profession that we should learn the answer by watching the movie, and then report it back to you, the loyal reader. But every now and again, a movie --say, a movie pretending to be an American movie about a serial killer which is actually a French movie about a zombie farmer-- comes along and really makes that process a far more onerous one than it has any right to be. By which I mean, I watched this thing, and I still couldn’t really tell you what it’s actually about. IMDB claims the tagline is “Some search for the serial killer. Some protect the zombies” ** which is… I guess kinda correct. Certainly, those are the only really noteworthy things that can be said to happen during the runtime, but the movie also seem weirdly disinterested in both its possible plotlines. What actually happens, mostly, is character get together in groups of no more than two and have quiet elliptical non-conversations in grammatically correct but awkwardly phrased English. And then Gil will walk around his surprisingly tastefully decorated --...farmhouse doesn’t sound quite right, French villa seems like a closer fit-- and have a glass of wine while staring apprehensively into the middle distance (there is a lot of wine drinking in this movie, which I choose to interpret as the French filmmakers’ hearty salute to the Virginia Wine Renaissance). Things happen, people die, but the film never seems to really be about any of it; it’s almost breathtakingly lacking in tension or momentum, with event after event stubbornly refusing to add up to any kind of plot. The music and camerawork seem to think it’s some kind of anxious, slow-burn thriller, but at no point does it suggest what it is, exactly, that is supposed to be thrilling us.

            There is a serial killer on the loose, but at no point does the movie treat this as a murder investigation with clues and whatnot (there are only three male characters anyway, so odds are it’s one of them). And there are a couple docile zombies in THE BARN, but they’re apparently domesticated and don’t really pose a threat to anyone. At some point, the young reporter from Richmond seems dangerously close to discovering Gil’s zombie herd and it briefly seems like the movie might be establishing some sort of stakes. “Can Gil keep a prying Big City middle-sized-city reporter away from his not-very-well-hidden secret tame zombie barn” would be a very weird focus of conflict in a movie which has both a serial killer and zombies, but at least it would be a conflict. But then she never finds them and nothing much comes of it, and her plotline abruptly ends. So whatever the movie is about, it’s definitely not about that. (SPOILERS) Near the end, Gil does figure out who the killer is, and it seems like maybe he’ll sic the zombies on him and that would at least explain why there are zombies in this movie. But then he doesn’t and nothing much happens, he just shoots the guy and that’s the end of it. (END SPOILERS)

There seems to be some implication that the original zombie outbreak started in this town, and the locals are touchy about the army because of it, but I’m sure I don’t know what to make of any of that, and the movie sure doesn’t seem eager to make any suggestions about it. Also it’s mentioned that Gil’s dad killed his mom 42 years ago, but as far as I can tell that never really ends up mattering either. It’s possible that the characters understand how these things are meaningfully related, but since they never mention it and just circuitously talk around the point, there’s really no way for the audience to know what the fuck any of this is supposed to mean. Virtually the entire cast manages to die, and yet the movie remains imperturbably low-key and absent of any clear point, or narrative, or hook, or even genre. How is that even possible?

            Heck, even the metaphor is completely obscure to me. I guess the zombies are terrorists locked up at Guantanamo? But what’s with the zombie whisperer who can make them harmless, and what does any of that have to do with an unrelated non-zombie serial killer? I can only assume that the entire population of France would immediately understand this, and that, despite the language barrier, this movie is targeted exclusively towards them.

            But maybe it’d play in Sugar Grove, too, I dunno. Never been. Doesn’t look like the Richmond Post-Dispatch has done a lot of reporting there, either, but they did visit for at least one story that I can find (warning: depressing). That’s probably not the episode Sugar Grove would prefer to to be known for in Richmond, so maybe the whole zombie farm angle isn’t such a bad thing have on the tourism brochure after all. I’d like to offer something better, but an excruciating lengthy online investigation revealed virtually no substantial information about the place.*** Still, I have to believe they deserve better than this.

* For comparison: if a serial killer got 2% of the population of Chicago, there would be roughly 54,000 dead.

** The poster, for the record, just has the generic “Fear What’s Inside” which still isn’t really accurate.

*** There’s an “Au-Some Mini Carnaval” at Oak Point Elementary school tomorrow, but that’s in neighboring Marion, VA. Also a “1st annual Kentucky Derby Party” at a bar called “27 Lions,” which seems like an oddly specific number of lions and I’d love to know the story there. Their website claims to have 27 taps and it’s a pretty good beer list, but come on guys, you’re burying the lede here, what’s up with the lions?