Review of You're Next (2011)

You’re Next is an interesting failure; about one fifth interest, four fifths failure. It starts out, and spends half of its time as, a generic slasher film crossed with home invasion flick, laced with black comedy and what could be theoretically be termed family drama if it bothered to be credible. Then an interesting thing happens around the halfway mark- far too late if you ask me- and the film attempts to become a subversion of the genre, begging the question “what if one of the people being picked off actually could fight back?”.

But for it to work as a subversion, it would have to signpost itself as that, but it does not and as a result it reduces the most interesting thing the film has to a gimmick. Think of films like Man Bites Dog, or Funny Games; horrific films, but using their horror to some kind of higher purpose. This had the potential to be one of those films, or something approaching it, and it basically screwed up.

The story; a family of parents, three brothers, a sister, and each’s respective spouse or girlfriend gather at an old house in the middle of nowhere; you know, one of those old houses with a wooden interior and a confusing layout the film-makers never bother to clarify to the audience. The family itself, comprising attractive hipsters, don’t get on for contrived reasons I won’t bother to explain here (the film descends into histrionics very early on, and uses superficial and lazy writing to highlight these frayed tensions; oh no, one brother called the other one fat). Then, of course, an arrow from a crossbow comes through the window and pierces one of the family in the head. Then one through the heart of another family member. And so on and so forth, all by men wearing white animal masks. 

At this point, I grew very bored very quickly. There was something about the interplay of the family coupled with this tired slasher schtick that rubbed me up the wrong way. The film is far too morose and formal to be funny, which it occasionally tries to be, and director Adam Wingard shoots the film with the life sucked out of it, all static shots too closely zoomed in, with dark hues, greys and browns; even the blood is muted. Thus, moments with potential such as the vaguely amusing moment where, when discussing who should run out the house, one brother proclaims “I’m the fastest, but I have an arrow in my back,” are completely wasted.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing; the dialogue in Simon Barrett’s screenplay. Varying from functional to downright bizarre, one can’t ignore exchanges such as this;

A: “What are you doing?”

B: “We need to make sure all the windows and doors are locked.”

A: “What?”

There are a lot of moments like that in this film.

As I have mentioned, the film does pick up, and while I suppose what I say now could be considered a spoiler, it may decide whether you think this film is worthwhile or not. See, after most of the family have been picked off, it turns out that one of the girlfriends, Erin (played by Sharni Vinson, in the only performance that isn’t one-note) is incredibly deft at killing people. In fact, as she is cornered by one of the men wearing animal masks, she kicks him, and pounds his head with a meat tenderiser over and over (and over) again. This scene, which recalls the infamous head-stomp from Drive, was the potential turnaround for the film, as it is so often the case that the people being attacked are needlessly vulnerable; it is highly plausible that someone could fight back. But instead we are dragged back through the usual quagmire of clichés, tropes and beats from other films (I counted, in no particular order, The Shining, Halloween, The Strangers, Night of the Living Dead and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre). This central premise is never treated as anything other than a way to deliver the slasher formula. 

There’s a bit more to the film; I’ve purposely left out the other big twist, which occurs at around the same time, but that one is a little easier to see coming anyway. There was real potential for something interesting here, but it spends too long setting up and relying on the hoary old clichés when a fresher, more offbeat approach (which the film occasionally, tantalisingly demonstrates) would have served this material a lot more effectively.

As a final point, this is what is considered quite typical of horror films lately. The sole purpose of horror films is to scare people; at no point was I scared in this film. I winced at a use of garret wire, a stabbing, an embedded nail, and a particularly inventive use of a blender, but there was no fear or terror. This film, for all its faults, is very typical of what horror has descended into lately. How many more men in masks killing people can we take?