Zach Cregger's Barbarian finally getting physical release on Blu-ray

After years of begging 20th Century Fox, Cregger's directorial debut is making its way to physical media

One of the best horror movies in recent years is finally getting a physical release. Zach Cregger’s Barbarian will receive a 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray SteelBook this summer after a lengthy and public campaign from the director. Barbarian’s long-awaited physical release features some unsettling art from Creepy Duck Design that silhouettes the film's nightmare Airbnb against a red sky.

An exciting aspect of Barbarian's physical release are the bonus features. There will be an audio commentary track from the film’s writer-director, Zach Cregger, and producer Roy Lee. There will also be the feature Behind Barbarian, which includes interviews with Cregger, as well as the title cast and crew, on the film's defining horror elements and its points of inspiration. There will also be deleted scenes.

Cregger has been advocating for Barbarian ​​​​​​to get a physical release for years. “I have banged the drum, made phone calls, and tried my best to get some sort of physical media,” Cregger said to Bloody Disgusting about a year ago. “I’m not making headway, and it kind of bums me out.” It appears he finally got through to someone at 20th Century Studios.

Barbarian was Cregger’s directorial debut, and it gave this founding member of The Whitest Kids U' Know comedy troupe cache in horror overnight. The film received critical acclaim while grossing over $45 million on a $4.5 million production budget. Cregger followed it up last year with the even bigger hit Weapons, which made $270 million on a $38 million budget. It received some award-season buzz, something rare for horror, and Amy Madigan’s performance in the movie earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

All eyes are on Cregger’s next film, Resident Evil, another adaptation of the game series that has generated quite a bit of nervous optimism. While Paul W.S. Anderson’s six Resident Evil movies and Johannes Roberts’ 2021 reboot have a fairly bad reputation, Cregger brings prestige to the production. The director describes himself as a big fan of the games, and you can tell because the film’s trailer references the incredibly specific gaffe of accidentally wasting ammo after missing a shot on a stationary lock.

The movie will be a reboot, and instead of following the series’ usual suspects like Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield, the film will center on a regular dude who finds himself caught in the middle of this zombie apocalypse: it basically seems like what would happen if the player were transported to Raccoon City during the events of Resident Evil 2. It’s in theaters on Sept. 18.

Barbarian's physical release is scheduled for Aug. 11. The SteelBook release includes both a 4K UHD Blu-ray and a standard Blu-ray disc. For audio, it will have English, French, and Spanish 5.1 DTS-HDMA and Dolby 2.0 Digital Descriptive Audio for English. There will also be subtitles for those languages.