Barbarian (2022) 4K Blu-Ray Steelbook Review – The Ultimate Version of Zach Cregger’s Debut?

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are taking a look at the 4K Steelbook Blu-Ray release of Zach Cregger’s debut movie Barbarian (2022). Needless to say, this is the definitive way to watch this fantastic horror movie so let’s take a look. As always, photos of the steelbook are featured throughout the review so scroll down to see more.

A Stunning Debut Feature

It goes without saying that writer, director Zach Cregger has become one of the biggest names in horror, as of late. Much of that hype can be attributed to the success of his debut feature length film – Barbarian.

Barbarian would release in September of 2022 and gross over $46 million on a budget of just $4 million. It currently sits at a 92% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and has a 7/10 IMDb user score. Pretty impressive.

It might be surprising to some that we have had to wait a full four years for this movie to actually receive the 4K Steelbook treatment. It’s quite shocking, all things considered, especially after last year’s release of the Weapons (Cregger’s sophomore effort) Steelbook (we’ll be reviewing that soon).

With that being said, it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that this release hit the market this September (August in the US). In fact, it feels very timely given all the recent hype for Zach Cregger’s reboot of the Resident Evil series.

We reviewed Resident Evil just the other day so go ahead and read that for more info(spoiler alert, it’s one of this year’s best horror movies). We also reviewed Barbarian ages ago so you can read our verdict on the film, if you like, before carrying on with this review of the 4K Blu-ray.

Barbarian sees Tess (Georgina Campbell) arriving at an Airbnb only to find it is double booked. After being invited in to try and resolve the problem, she gradually learns that the home is hiding much more than simply administration issues.

Packaging & Physical Presentation

Kicking things off with a nice positive here, we have a bespoke piece of artwork for this steelbook that’s really pretty fantastic.

Red and black is one of my favourite colour combinations when it comes to 4K Horror Steelbooks and that’s exactly what we have here.

The front features a grungy looking depiction of the house at 476 Barbary which is really pretty cool. This image is glossy before bleeding into a matte black abyss, below. This is accompanied by the movie title in bold, glossy letters using Barbarian’s trademark font.

The bottom of the cover features a slightly glossy image of, what could possibly be considered, a spoiler character – Mother. This image is also printed on the lower part of the J-Card which is a rather nice touch as they blend together nicely.

Incidentally, the J-Card here is quite different from what you might be used to. It’s fully cardboard and actually wraps entirely around the bottom of the Steelbook, acting as something of a pocket. It looks pretty good and should help protect the Steelbook from shelf wear but it does create one annoying issue.

The top of the J-Card is actually stuck down with a small blob of glue. You can’t open the steelbook without sliding it out of the J-Card and that means removing the glue. This leaves you with an annoying top flap that simply doesn’t stay in place.

Do NOT make the mistake of just blindly opening the steelbook or you will tear the J-card at the seam.

Now, you could leave the glue there, if you like, but it seemed to lose tackiness pretty quickly for us so we just removed it. I’m 50/50 on this design. It feels robust but that top part is very annoying. Put the J-card in a box somewhere and slap the Steelbook in a protective sleeve.

The back of the J-card obviously features the movie’s blurb, a few images from the film, bonus stuff, technical information, etc and it all looks absolutely fine. Again, it’s a bit spoilerific for a film that you are best approaching with minimal knowledge of what happens.

Removing the J-card, we have a very cool grungy artistic depiction of the stairs leading down to the basement with Tess standing at the top and an ominous silhouette of a woman standing at the bottom.

I love this image! It’s very nice to see interesting artwork taking centre stage and the image, as well as the colour scheme fits the theme of the movie perfectly. Again, the lighter parts are gloss while the black parts are matte.

Inside, we continue the black and red theme with a creepy image of an ominous looking hand. The discs feature partially obscured character faces. All in all, it’s a fantastically well presented steelbook that really stands out for its cool designs and attention to detail.

Our steelbook arrived from Amazon in their usual shoddy packaging but was mostly fine. It has one tiny ding near the opening.

A Quick Note For American Buyers

I’ve seen a lot of American buyers talking about their Barbarian 4K Steelbooks arriving with issues. Many buyers have reported their copies not opening and closing properly.

These issues seem to range from simply needing a bit of extra effort to close the steelbook to the whole thing not closing at all.

This appears to be something of a worrying trend with recent releases in the US and I am not sure why. I can only imagine it is a quality control issue?

UK copies seem to have avoided this problem. I’m happy to report that our copy opens and closes with no problems at all.

4K Video Presentation

So, you may be assuming that firing up this 4K Blu-ray on your Dolby Vision set is going to leave you absolutely blown away, right? Well, that’s not really the case. In fact, I kinda had to double check that the signal was outputting in 4K when this film first kicked off.

Zach Cregger went out of his way to produce Barbarian in a way that looks gritty and a bit retro. It’s digitally filmed (on account of all those dark basement scenes, and all) but there is a decent amount of artificial grain added in post purely to give it that “lived in” grimy look.

This hasn’t been toned down at all for the 4K release. This is not a sharp image and that’s particularly noticeable in darker scenes. Outdoors, things get a little better but it still feels, almost, like an upscaled 1080p picture.

Up close textures are a little sharper, there’s a little more detail here and there, and colours are richer, but that’s about it. I would honestly suggest that buying this release purely for a stunning 4K upgrade would be doing yourself a disservice. You will probably be disappointed.

I should emphasise, here, that this all appears to be a deliberate choice, not a poor 4K transfer.

This is a native 4K image, it is just very soft and textured due to the way the film was handled in post. Hell, the 4K even reveals a few moments where they have gone a bit over the top with the artificial grain. This is especially noteworthy in darker scenes in that basement.

Dolby Vision helps things quite a lot. Dark scenes give up far more detail and shadows with Dolby Vision and it almost feels essential for truly enjoying every shot in the film. That scene by scene adjustment does a ton of heavy lifting. It helps you appreciate the 4K transfer more, as well.

In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that HDR 10 would fall a bit short, here. I didn’t imagine it would be capable of adequately providing the subtle differences needed to make moodier scenes really come alive. When going back to check, I think that is definitely the case.

HDR10 feels like it crushes the darker scenes, leaving details absent and shadows feeling a bit clumsy. When the lights go down, it really misses some of those more nuanced adjustments that you get with Dolby Vision. It’s certainly not ugly but it definitely bears mention.

Audio Tracks

So we have another strange decision here. Audio is provided in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 rather than the Dolby Atmos format that is becoming so damn popular on 4K Blu-rays, as of late.

Now, that doesn’t seem like a huge problem, right? I mean, a decent DTS-HD 5.1 track can have a ton of spacial variance and feel extremely full which, in all fairness, Barbarian does. It just seems like a bit of a missed opportunity when you think about the location this movie takes place in.

Those underground scenes are simply begging for some well-placed vertical ambience and directional object-based sounds to really build on the feeling of claustrophobia and terror. I can only imagine how cool it would have been to have the screams and footsteps bouncing down those tunnels as the characters have no clue what is coming.

I’m not sure what went into this decision but it is what it is.

As it stands, this is still a great sounding movie with an extremely wide track that makes the most of the format. The underground scenes really shine, only enhancing the feeling of dread in those tunnels, and the bass adds a ton of punch to some of the more action packed scenes.

Bonus Features & Value

We have some nice bonus features here but it isn’t exactly packed. Obviously we get two discs, one for the 4K Blu-ray and one for standard Blu-ray. We also get some deleted scenes and the Behind Barbarian documentary that takes us behind the scenes with Zach Cregger and the cast to discuss the horror elements of the film.

The standout inclusion for me is the audio commentary. It features Zach Cregger and producer Roy Lee as they discuss some of the ins and outs of producing the movie. There’s so much you can learn about the filmmaking process with these tracks. Not to mention the thinking that goes behind certain decisions. It’s genuinely compelling.

Value wise, we paid about £34 for this and I do think it is worth the price.

I am a big fan of the extras and I love the steelbook. I wouldn’t suggest you immediately rush out to buy this if you already own a standard Blu-ray, though. It’s a lot of money for a film that really doesn’t shine a great deal in 4K because the style works so well in 1080p, as it is. Even the audio track doesn’t gain anything substantial with this release.

If you are purely a 4K Steelbook collector, however, go and grab it. It’s one of the nicer steelbook designs I have seen in awhile and the brilliant movie is more than worth owning in physical format.