You're Next

One of my fav home-invasion horror film. Intense. Clever twist. It's unique and even relieving to watch our main star make smart decisions. The whole film is executed with finesse and its pacing doesn't waste any of its minutes.

You're Next is directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett. It stars Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, A.J. Bowen and Joe Swanberg. Music is by Mads Heldtberg and cinematography by Andrew Palermo.

The Davison family and partners meet up for a family reunion at a remote holiday home and quickly find that their inner issues are the least of their worries.

The splinter of horror that encompasses home invasion, that most terrifying of subject matters, has had enough filmic entries to actually fill a house! So when another one comes along with good hype and a promise of reinvigorating the formula, it's cause for horror film fans to start salivating.

You're Next doesn't reinvent anything, but it consistently and confidently keeps the formula well oiled and proves to be one of the better films of its type. The set up is standard, a big old country house in the woods, a whole bunch of likable and dislikable people, and of course some outside assailants about to unleash hell on everyone in the house. Refreshingly this is not a roll call of pretty teenagers being stalked and slashed, this is an assorted bunch, young and old, all shapes and sizes, and the family bickering that precedes the carnage is a smart move, because once family members start getting killed there's a genuine sense of grief and regret coursing through those yet to be sliced and diced.

It's nice to find that Wingard has great respect for his target audience, he's made a film for fans of the sub-genre and inserted a darkly comic streak that pays off royally. It's often very nudge nudge and wink winkery, but always in the right places. The director also proves to have a devilish eye for a murder scene, with some of the killings here high grade in blood, physicality and originality. Elsewhere the makers give us a great heroine, a truly resourceful gal that fights back with a ferocity that's both sexy and frightening, and while the revelation of why these events are happening is hardly original – or that the back story given for our heroine's skills is just silly – Wingard plonks it all together with such bloody verve it hardly matters.

Some less than good acting from a couple of the cast, and the overuse of shaky-cam stops it from going through the roof out into the genius stratosphere, but this is a cracker of a home invasion horror and well worth a night in with the lights off and the volume tuned up loud. 8/10

If you're expected some "Scream" type of film, you're in for a surprise. The story did little in introducing you to all the character, but after you meet everyone, they're all let lose and scattered in awesome violence. Once you start to piece everything together, it starts to become a theme of survival. Unlike other slasher/action film that leads the character wandering helplessly through the scene and somehow end up surviving, You're Next takes you on a thrill ride where you're always on the edge of your seat rooting at every brilliant attempt of their survival. The dialogues are simple and humorous in many of the scenes, but you'll find yourself watching this only to wonder what'll happen at the end.

Surprise of the day! You're Next is effective, gruesome, wickedly funny and twisted. I had a blast with this. It's not that original, but the way it plays with certain expectations is pretty refreshing, and the whole set up and the way the rampage starts is pretty fantastic. While it never takes on a full-on comedic tone like other horror films, it still takes great pleasure in giving the audience the most simple type of satisfaction. That's not saying it's not gory, because it is, and it's quite brutal. The actors are all pretty appropriate considering the tone of the film, and the twists manage to work. The ending also works in spite of itself. This is highly recommended, perhaps even better than The Conjuring.

You're Next begins as a typical horror slasher with an isolated group of family/friends falling under attack from masked axe-wielding murderers, but a couple of twists and turns along the way set this movie apart. The true stand-out that makes You're Next so much more interesting than any other slasher is that the female lead is not a stereotypical inept final girl but a strong, capable survivalist, much more than the killers bargained. You're Next is brutal, gore-filled, and dark but satisfies by turning many horror stereotypes on their head with characters actually making some intelligent decisions in a slasher movie! Like many scary movies, there is some brief and unnecessary sex and nudity, so be prepared, but if you can get past that (or fast forward), the rest of the film is a blast!