Michael J. Tresca reviewed:
You're Next
This review is from: You're Next (DVD)
It's easy to get jaded if you're a fan of horror films. We've seen it all before: Slasher kills girl's family, girl meets slasher, slasher dies only to be resurrected in a sequel. "You're Next" is a refreshing twist on the tired slasher tropes.
The first sign that "You're Next" is different is in how director Adam Wingard treats his characters. Five minutes in, we are invited to judge a relationship without understanding what's going on: an older man and a much younger woman having sex. That early scene communicates volumes. Our camera perspective peering into the bedroom makes their lovemaking look more like violence. The girl is clearly unsatisfied. Padding out of the room while her lover takes a shower, she sets up a five-disc CD player of music on repeat that will be integral to the rest of the film. Then she dies.
As our protagonists enter the next scene, driving up to a house nearby ad offhandedly explaining that the double homicide we just witnessed was a professor who left his wife for a college student. Do we feel better about their deaths as a result of their moral transgressions? While that question bounces around, we discover that our protagonists Crispian (A.J. Bowen) and Erin (Sharni Vinson) are in a similar relationship. Do they deserve to die too?
The rest of the film is a running battle between three men in masks wielding crossbows and a WASPy family reunion gone sour. Erin and Crispian don't know each other that well, and the film cleverly juxtaposes the horrors of navigating a boyfriend's family with a slasher film. There's the frail mother, the overbearing father, the little sister who battles for attention, and the bullying older brother who is jealous of everyone else's happiness. All of these family members come with their respective spouses, who are equally clueless and disengaged. All the non-family members (Erin included) also look curiously fake -- Erin and Zee (Wendy Glenn) look like they're wearing wigs. In "You're Next" the killers aren't the only ones wearing masks.
As the assault progresses, we get an explanation for why the bad guys do what they do, and "You're Next" gleefully wallows in the utter depravity of its villains. It throws the sins of the family in stark relief -- they're bad, but they're not murderers. Or are they?
Erin certainly is. In a refreshing twist, we discover that Erin is no shrinking violet. She uses survival tactics worthy of any prepper compound. There's something viscerally satisfying about her increasingly ferocious counterattack as each character's morals (or lack thereof) are brutally unmasked.
"You're Next" is filled with plot holes in service to the genre. Nobody seems to have any guns. The killers can barely see thanks to their ridiculous masks and they refuse to take them off when anonymity is no longer an issue. And the murder plot is flimsy at best. But "You're Next" isn't about realism. It's about really, really hating your family. If you can't find the humor in that, this movie may not be right for you.
The first sign that "You're Next" is different is in how director Adam Wingard treats his characters. Five minutes in, we are invited to judge a relationship without understanding what's going on: an older man and a much younger woman having sex. That early scene communicates volumes. Our camera perspective peering into the bedroom makes their lovemaking look more like violence. The girl is clearly unsatisfied. Padding out of the room while her lover takes a shower, she sets up a five-disc CD player of music on repeat that will be integral to the rest of the film. Then she dies.
As our protagonists enter the next scene, driving up to a house nearby ad offhandedly explaining that the double homicide we just witnessed was a professor who left his wife for a college student. Do we feel better about their deaths as a result of their moral transgressions? While that question bounces around, we discover that our protagonists Crispian (A.J. Bowen) and Erin (Sharni Vinson) are in a similar relationship. Do they deserve to die too?
The rest of the film is a running battle between three men in masks wielding crossbows and a WASPy family reunion gone sour. Erin and Crispian don't know each other that well, and the film cleverly juxtaposes the horrors of navigating a boyfriend's family with a slasher film. There's the frail mother, the overbearing father, the little sister who battles for attention, and the bullying older brother who is jealous of everyone else's happiness. All of these family members come with their respective spouses, who are equally clueless and disengaged. All the non-family members (Erin included) also look curiously fake -- Erin and Zee (Wendy Glenn) look like they're wearing wigs. In "You're Next" the killers aren't the only ones wearing masks.
As the assault progresses, we get an explanation for why the bad guys do what they do, and "You're Next" gleefully wallows in the utter depravity of its villains. It throws the sins of the family in stark relief -- they're bad, but they're not murderers. Or are they?
Erin certainly is. In a refreshing twist, we discover that Erin is no shrinking violet. She uses survival tactics worthy of any prepper compound. There's something viscerally satisfying about her increasingly ferocious counterattack as each character's morals (or lack thereof) are brutally unmasked.
"You're Next" is filled with plot holes in service to the genre. Nobody seems to have any guns. The killers can barely see thanks to their ridiculous masks and they refuse to take them off when anonymity is no longer an issue. And the murder plot is flimsy at best. But "You're Next" isn't about realism. It's about really, really hating your family. If you can't find the humor in that, this movie may not be right for you.
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