Barbie (read our review HERE) is currently dominating the box office, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if it goes on to rack up some Oscar nominations as well. It seems like a lock for categories like Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, etc. Variety recently spoke to production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer about the work they did to bring Barbie Land to the screen… and during the conversation, it was revealed that one of the locations in Barbieland was inspired by an iconic location from one of the most popular horror movies ever made: Weird Barbie’s house was inspired by the Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (watch it HERE)!
Weird Barbie’s house was one of the last sets Greenwood and Spencer worked on, and Greenwood had this to say about it: “One of my early references is that you go up the stairs, and there’s the Psycho house, and we brought in other elements. Its design was deliberately skewed with everything pushed out of shape and out of order.“
If you haven’t seen Barbie yet, Weird Barbie is a character played by Kate McKinnon. She has a funky haircut and she smells like basement, and it’s explained that kids can make a Barbie doll “weird” by playing too hard with them. And once you know her house was inspired by the Psycho house, the inspiration is plain to see. You can check out an image of Weird Barbie’s house at the bottom of this article.
Directed by Greta Gerwig, who wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach, Barbie has the following synopsis: Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.
In the cast with McKinnon are Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne, Ritu Arya, Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan, Mette Narrative, Marisa Abela, Lucy Boynton, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, John Cena, Rob Brydon, Tom Stourton, America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt, Genvieve Toussaint, Rhea Perlman, Helen Mirren, Will Ferrell, Connor Swindells, Jamie Demetriou, Emerald Fennell, Erica Ford, Hannah Khalique-Brown, and Ann Roth.
I haven’t seen Barbie yet myself, but I’m interested in checking it out at some point – and knowing there’s a Psycho Easter egg in there makes my outlook on it even more positive than it already was.