Reviews 50 Beardy from Hell

Barbarian

Genre Horror Thriller Reviewer Linda Heller-Salvador

The ‘horror’ in writer-director Zach Cregger’s (The Whitest Kids U’Know) feature film debut Barbarian is, strangely enough, an innocent victim born out of someone else’s warped deeds. Cregger takes well-worn horror tropes such as deserted streets, abandoned locations and houses with dark, creepy basements and expands on them with his own uniquely twisted sense of humour, dread and imagination.

When Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her short-term Airbnb rental, she is surprised that the accommodation has been double booked and is occupied by a man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård). Ignoring her gut instinct to hightail it out of there, she accepts Keith’s offer to share the rental house. What begins as a simple mix-up slowly deteriorates into a jaw-dropping roller coaster ride with a bizarre ending.

Barbarian is a film where the less known about it, the better the viewing experience. It may be a simple premise, but it leaves you with plenty to talk about afterwards.

The Car

Label Domino Recording Company Reviewer @aldothewriter Rating  This may be one of the biggest disappointments of my life. The Arctic Monkeys have gone full Stanley Kubrick and I don’t care for it. The Car felt like catching up with an old friend at the pub and discovering they don’t drink alcohol anymore and have spent the last two years living in a cave, learning how to exist in silence, and paying thousands of dollars for the experience. You just wanted to smash beers and make fart jokes, but they’re more interested in lording they’re spiritual superiority over you, while sipping alkaline water from a clay pot.

LOYLE CARNER

hugo

Label EMI Records Reviewer @aldothewriter Rating  Loyle Carner is one of modern music’s great thinkers, and he has stormed back into form after an underwhelming second album that we will never speak of again. hugo should be renamed Long Life Milk, because it is so good. Carner’s raw honesty, combined with his innate knack for storytelling, transports you to a South London kitchen, on a grey morning, pouring cereal from the box and wondering exactly what his father did to him, because he sounds like a prick. These tracks won’t fill up your dance floor, but they will bring joy to your heart.

THE 1975 Being Funny in a Foreign Language

Label Dirty Hit Reviewer @aldothewriter Rating  I only listened to The 1975 because the lead singer had a crack at Triple J for not promoting them just after Triple J had... promoted them. It reeked of the kind of unstable, egotistical behaviour that I love in a muso. It’s pretty good. Big ‘80s rock vibe. Like The Killers, but without the grandeur. That might upset the lead singer to read, but come on, mate, you’re not that good. Like my mother always said, you can’t write lyrics referencing your “boner” - no matter how magnificent it is - and expect people to take you seriously.