Thrill_KillZ Review of Barricade

Barricade (2012)

A film using confusion & doubt to creep you out.

[6/10 · 29 September 2012]

Major Spoiler****************The whole film is basically given out by here so Spoiler Beware******************* Frankly the only reason I am doing this is due to the frustration of reading all of these negative clueless reviews where no one can seem to figure this simple plot out. It seems like people either got this film totally or not at all. A widowed father played by Eric McCormack rents a cabin in the snowy mountains along the way they stop at a store for supplies and meet the care taker there(he runs the store) The caretaker has the flu & the dad & his two young children all contract the flu from him. In the first 24-48 hours things go from good to bad as they get sicker & sicker. The dad who isn't used to taking care of the kids because his wife used to do that stuff(but now dead), so he struggles especially when they all become terribly ill. High fevers plague them all & dad starts washing down Clonzapam(same as Xanax) with a bottle of whiskey to treat himself. As his temperature rises & the drugs take affect he starts to become delusional & paranoid. He starts to lose track of time(Clonzapam+Alcohol) and he wakes up after sleeping all night & all day to find out the storm that he knew was coming has buried his car completely, he didn't have the energy to uncover it. His kids randomly drop hints of hearing things in the house and seeing a figure outside so dad's fragile mental state starts to spin out of control with paranoia & fear so he boards up the house completely. They think something is in the attic, they here constant noise up there so he locks the latch to it. Evidently the caretaker came to the house to check up on them & dad in his drug, alcohol & fever induced delusion locked him in the attic because he was the reason his family got sick & he believes both of his kids Lay dead in bed due to the flu they had so he ties him up & puts him in the attic(he blacks out & doesn't even remember putting him up there), thats where the noise was coming from. Also on the way there he hit a large wolf, due to that being in his head it just adds to the danger he feels from the outside. In the end the cops break the door down to find the missing caretaker & at that moment dad finds out his kids were only sleeping & they all get taken away in an ambulance, with the police saying he will be charged for what he did. Everything else in the film is on account of the father's weak grip on reality & his drug,alcohol,stress & fever induced craziness. The only thing unexplained is in the last ten seconds when the curtain is pulled back from the window, that is unexplained, everything else is completely explained, causes & effects, all of them. If you saw a scene that you didn't understand it's because it's being shot by his perceptions, not the true reality, just a fever alone will make you hallucinate never mind combining it with the pills & alcohol. Even though I pretty much knew what was going on it still managed to creep me out quite a bit throughout. It was new original film that used confusion to get into your mind questioning your beliefs & it wasn't a terrible film by any means, the acting by Eric McCormack was good, I had no problem with it. He sold the role enough to show he has lost his head totally. It was well funded & had good production value, TV quality at the very least. I would recommend it to someone as a decent film 6/10