The horror movie that blew Stephen King away: “It was crazy! Crazy good!”
For any filmmaker or actor working in the horror genre, receiving praise from Stephen King is like manna from heaven. King is practically synonymous with horror, and when he endorses a project and tells fans it’s worth their time, the genre’s loyal audience tends to pay attention. Over the years, King has elevated countless horror films by giving them his coveted stamp of approval on social media. In 2022, he spoke highly of a particularly gruesome and surprising film that left him in awe—and, as it turns out, King himself had uniquely inspired the writer/director during its creation.
When Zach Cregger, a comedian and actor who was part of the New York improv troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know, decided he wanted to shake his career up, he began writing a script for a horror movie. He was inspired by the self-help book The Gift of Fear, in which security expert Gavin de Becker told readers how to spot warning signs of danger. However, a section specifically implored women not to ignore the red flags they notice in day-to-day interactions with men, and it sparked an idea in Cregger’s head.
The filmmaker began to write a scene following a young woman who arrives at an Airbnb at night, only to find out it has been double-booked and a mysterious man is already staying there. Cregger proceeded to include as many minor red flags in the situation as he could think of but resolved that he wouldn’t plot out the scene in advance, as he wanted to surprise himself with how it developed. Eventually, though, he got bored with the scene as he felt it was leading to the inevitable conclusion of the mystery man being revealed as somehow villainous. So, he threw himself another curveball by introducing a bizarre twist as a way to flip the scene on its head.
Cregger chuckled to The Hollywood Reporter, “I was like, ‘A big naked lady comes out and smashes his head into pieces.'” To his surprise, this made the writing process fun again and actually unlocked the rest of the script, which would have a narrative structure that constantly reinvented itself as it went along. Cregger attached the name Barbarian as a placeholder title, but it wound up sticking, and in 2022, the movie was released to feverish reviews and a box office take 11 times larger than its budget.
When King saw the film and tweeted, “Yeah, that movie blew me away. It was crazy. Crazy good,” though, Cregger must have been ecstatic. You see, the unique writing process behind Barbarian, which prioritised discovery over planning, was inspired by something King has often said about his own process.
Cregger revealed, “Stephen King says that when he writes, he’s like an archaeologist. He unearths these dinosaur bones one after another, and he never knows what dinosaur he’s going to end up with.”
In the end, Cregger successfully turned the structured part of his brain off and simply let his fingers do the walking. He smiled: “I wanted to get my head out of the equation. So, as these radical twists and turns happen, that was just me thinking, ‘What would I like to see happen next? What would be the most interesting thing for me that I’ve never seen before as a viewer?'”
Ultimately, Barbarian’s endlessly surprising nature struck a chord with King, who perhaps recognised some of his own spirit in Cregger’s work. Heartwarmingly, though, his kind words also meant a lot to one of the film’s stars: Justin Long. During an interview with Comic Book, Long admitted that he had been a King fanatic since childhood, and hearing that his hero had loved something he starred in was an emotional experience.
“I grew up with Stephen King,” Long gushed. “I’m just the biggest fan. That’s wild. I sometimes wonder if people I really admire have seen things I was in or are aware of me.”
The grateful star concluded, “I mean, there’s no higher praise than from somebody like that.”
