‘Grab anything that might make a good weapon...’
Adam Wingard has done some excellent work with the V/H/S franchise but he is also responsible for the excretable Blair Witch reboot from 2016. Aside from The Guest, You’re Next is probably his only other unqualified success and while there is much here to admire, I’m not sure it’s the modern horror classic that it’s sometimes touted as…
A family comes under attack from a selection of masked lunatics. We follow Erin (Sharni Vinson) and Crispian (A.J. Bowen) as they attempt to survive the night. It’s a paper-thin plot made worse by bland, forgettable and often unlikeable characters.
Wingard’s breakout movie is not all bad, however, not by a long stretch. It looks fantastic – Wingard knows how to shoot and execute a death scene (as it were) and his camera work and editing is often innovative and propulsive. At 95 minutes he keeps things moving along at a breathless pace and there are enough twists and turns to keep things interesting until the film’s bloody conclusion. The problem is that personally I just didn’t care about any of these characters by the end. It feels like Wingard is often trying to achieve his own brand of mumblecore realism (and the presence of mumblecore maestro Joe Swanberg seems to confirm that) but that is a style that makes for an uneasy fit with bombastic violence and extreme gore.
You’re Next is a good horror film with great moments. It’s a frustrating film. With just a few tweaks and a little more character development, it really could be a modern horror classic. Still, the blender scene will stay with me for some time. And that’s worth something.