‘This is literally Barbarian’: Group of friends find hidden door with stairway leading to horrifying surprise in their Airbnb

When watching a horror movie you can usually take comfort in the fact that none of it is real. But what do you do when you’re living the horror movie? That’s exactly the situation a group of friends found themselves in after discovering a creepy hidden door in their Airbnb. The subsequent videos they posted to TikTok looked like something straight out of the movie Barbarian.

The clip posted by Rachel Parkinson on TikTok has received over 150 million views in three days. It shows them moving one of the kitchen counters in the Airbnb which seems like it was designed to be pulled out as it looks like it’s on a hinge. Behind the counter, what previously looked like an innocent piece of wall behind it is now shown to be a full door complete with a lock on the outside.

A group of friends staying in an unfamiliar environment with a creepy hidden door? Yep, this definitely sounds like the set up for a horror movie. But what’s behind that door? Perhaps it’s perfectly innocent after all.

Yeah we’ve seen more than our fair share of creepy basement encounters on TikTok. It’s gonna be a no from me.

That doesn’t look so innocent

Opening the door reveals a dank descent into despair with a staircase that disappears down into darkness. Understandably the group is hesitant to go down and find out just what is awaiting them down there. However, with a little encouragement from the people of TikTok Rachel and her friends decide to make a second video where they venture down to fully explore the creepy hidden basement.

Visible at the bottom of the stairs is what looks to be a mattress. There are also drawings all over the walls that look to have been scribbled on with crayons. This just went from slightly creepy to full blown horror movie. Now would certainly be the time to leave the Airbnb and make sure to leave a bad review too.

Comments on TikTok immediately began comparing Rachel and her friend’s experience to that of Barbarian (2022), a popular horror film where the plot revolves around a woman who rents an Airbnb only to find a subterranean tunnel with a dark secret hidden within.

The truth

While all this makes for an entertaining watch, thankfully it’s not all true. In a third video Rachel shows the full basement and reveals in the caption that her and her friends put the mattress down there themselves to lean into the creepy speculation on TikTok. 

In reality it appears it may be an old wine cellar, one of the group even speculates as much in the first video, although it does have a very creepy entrance. The initial video and the group’s reactions were probably real but in the end it wasn’t a horror movie basement, just a normal creepy basement that the owners wanted to keep hidden for some reason.