The Animals Will Hunt: You're Next (2011)

You're Next (2011)
Rating: ****
Starring: Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen

There's hype. And then there's Hype!

Starting out as a 2011 film festival entry before getting released theatrically a year or two later, You're Next (2011) sees itself as a gritty and sleek patchwork of home invasion horrors and slasher savagery; a praise-worthy popcorn muncher balancing dark humor and bloody siege attacks, punctuated with a badass final girl action that truly delivers.

I see you...

The scene starts off with a love-making couple getting murdered as soon as they finish by who appears to be a machete-wielding maniac. We then cut to one Crispian Davidson taking his new girlfriend Erin to meet his loaded yet highly dysfunctional family at a getaway country mansion where his parents are celebrating their wedding anniversary. Things are tense and jittery all through the morning with bad blood getting between brothers, Erin trying to fit in with her boyfriend's family (she is an Australian in a house full of Americans), and weird noises coming from upstairs freaking mum out. But as far family matters go, this is nothing compared to the shitstorm that's about to happen.

Once they settle in for the big dinner, a trio of masked intruders, armed to the teeth and hellbent on murder, simply show up and begin killing them one by one in a seemingly meaningless slaughter. But what these killers didn't know is that one of their intended targets has a secret of her own. Something that would actually put a deadly turn against them...

I have to give a big thumbs up for Adam Wingard, the director and editor behind this flick; the last works I've seen from him were his first feature, the splat-tastic yet flawed slasher flick Home Sick (2007) featuring Bill Moseley, and the strangely hypnotic serial killer thriller A Horrible Way to Die (2010). You're Next (2011) may not raise the bar any higher in terms of story as its really nothing more than just a slasher-fied home invasion thriller done dozens of times before with the likes of movies such as 2007's French Extreme Inside or even Spain's 2010 release Kidnapped (more or less the latter), but what the film did right is that it knows how to keep the ball rolling once shit finally hits the fan and doesn't let up on the bloodwork all the way.

Some witty script and stylized camera work improve the entertainment value of the movie, making the characters and the situation they're in a twistedly engaging spectacle. From time to time, the film shifts tones from seriously traumatizing to sly and cynical, toying with our heads to where exactly this story is going. Eventually, we get enough curveball turns to get us diving into new suspects, unexpected developments and, yes, more bodycount.

What's more refreshing here is the characterization of this film's obvious final girl; undergoing a survivalist camp by a paranoid father back in Australia, Sharni Vinson plays Erin as a quick thinking and really hardcore gal that isn't afraid to shed some blood to protect herself and what remains of her boyfriend's family. While majority of the cast got killed off screaming and panicking, she's there to be graceful under pressure, setting up traps to disarm, distract and destroy!

The villains themselves are also really cool and intimidating with their black squad gear and merciless determination to simply kill everyone they can catch. (Which apparently includes Ti West as one of the brothers. That'll teach you to waste our time with that "short film" Miscarriage in ABCs of Death! (2013)) Who they are and why they're doing this call for spoilers, but for most of the running time onscreen, their bloody handiwork are as fine as the creepy animal masks they're wearing.

Wolf Mask is good at what he do. And You're Next!

You're Next (2011) is perhaps the next best thing there is in profiling home invasion horror flicks. Yes it is clichéd and lacking any real story apart from murder, mayhem and masquerades (both literal and figuratively), but for the right audience and for the right time, it's definitely a worthwhile slaughter flick for fans alike to enjoy.

 

Bodycount:
1 female found slaughtered
1 male hacked on the head with a machete
1 male shot through the head with a crossbow
1 female ran through piano wire, throat cut
1 female hacked on the head with a machete
1 female struck on the temple with an axe
1 male had his head beaten to a pulp with a meat hammer
1 male had his throat cut with a machete
1 male stabbed to death with screwdrivers
1 male stabbed on the head with a screwdriver
1 male gets his head pulped with a wooden log
1 male gets a live, glass-broken blender to the head, shredded
1 female knifed on the head
1 male stabbed on the neck and eye with a knife
1 male hacked on the face with a falling axe
Total: 15

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