You’re Next (2011) Review

Yet another film I breezed past on Netflix for ages until finally deciding to give it a go. Now I’m not the biggest fan of home invasion type films, there’s usually not a big enough body count for me to find them fun and they can be really boring. However this one is really different…….

Director: Adam Wingard

Writer: Simon Barrett

Stars: Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen

Run Time: 95 minutes

Budget: $1 million

Trivia – Simon Barrett, the Tiger Mask Killer, is also the movie’s screenwriter.

Trivia – Both Joe Swanberg and Ti West, who play eldest brother Drake and Aimee’s underground director boyfriend Tariq are two prominent mumblegore directors, a horror genre in which You’re Next (2011) is also included.

I’ve never even heard of mumblegore!

This film starts with Erin (Sharni Vinson) and Crispian (AJ Bowen) heading to meet Crispian’s rich parents and his siblings and their partners. When arriving at the massive house in the country Crispian is eventually united with his brothers and sister along with their partners.

There’s some dislike between the group with one brother bringing to life an internet troll with his dim witted comments and obvious baiting of everyone else. Luckily for us these touching family moments are interrupted when one of them is shot with an arrow and the entire family attacked.

I’m surprised it took me so long to watch this given the animal masks similar to the ones worn by the Wyatt Family in the WWE

There’s a reason for the attack and although it’s not clearly pointed out I thought there was enough hints throughout the film to be able to work out exactly what was happening, that’s not to say the twists and turns were badly done maybe I’ve just watched too many films!

What makes this film more special than horror films I’ve seen recently is the attackers really have picked the wrong targets. Erin shows a masterful skill in fighting back and fends off the attackers in brutal fashion. She really is the best final girl I’ve seen in a long long time as she racks up gory and often brutal kills and fight backs one after the other.

There’s really no one you want to see survive apart from Erin and I often found myself wanting some to be next as soon as possible!

The Good

I felt the film was paced perfectly we were introduced to everyone in the film quite early on and left to ourselves to wonder why this attack is happening as the reasons as slowly if slightly predictably revealed.

The kills are quite brilliant with some being real tongue in cheek/black comedy style kills.

The acting is reasonable enough to get us through the film and given the $1 million budget the films make up and effects are spot on.

The Bad

I suppose some of the characters are a bit boring and most other than Erin are one dimensional despite us being shown twists they still remain boring. I felt myself wanting to see everyone “get it” apart from Erin.

Other than that there’s not really any bad parts to this greatly enjoyable film.

I’m in love!

The Brilliant

I feel that Erin played by Sharni Vinson deserves a special mention her character is totally kick ass. It’s great to see the way she changes as soon as everyone is under threat of death, it’s some solid acting on her part and a really strong character that the writers have created. I’d love to see more of her character but given the ending and the fact it’d probably be impossible to write a film with her in it again I can’t ever see it happening.

I really enjoyed this film loads more than I expected. As I mentioned I’d scrolled past it loads and I regret that now. It’s got everything I love in this sort of film, good deaths, bordering on funny, a completely kick ass female lead characters and it’s perfectly paced. Give it a watch even if it’s just for Erin! It’s a film that shouldn’t be taken too seriously just sit back and enjoy the chaos!

Overall Score