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Movie Review: You’re Next

Mike Tyrkus
You're Next

Sharni Vinson in "You're Next." © 2013 - Lionsgate.

Finished in 2011 and finally getting a wide release, comes the new home invasion horror film You’re Next. This entertaining, yet lopsided offering from the makers of V/H/S/ and The ABCs of Death is the right amount of gory in some parts and unabashedly fun in others. But it never really finds the space where it’s comfortable and ends up languishing in the land of what could have been. Still, You’re Next is an entertaining ride more often than it is not and is probably a movie best enjoyed rather than scrutinized.

To celebrate their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, Paul (Rob Moran) and Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) Davison have invited their four children to celebrate the milestone with them. Shortly after all of the Davison children arrive, with their significant others in tow, at the family’s isolated mansion however, they are attacked by masked, ax- and machete-wielding maniacs intent on wiping out the entire clan. Now, with each member of the party being dispatched in increasingly gruesome ways, the remaining guests must work together to stay alive and find out exactly why they are being targeted. But, what the animal-mask wearing psychopaths don’t know is that one of the Davison’s guests has a penchant for bloodshed as well.

There are more than a few scenes in You’re Next that prove to be real crowd pleasers. That’s the version of the film that works. But, this is a film guilty of wanting to be two different movies simultaneously. On one hand, You’re Next tries to succeed as a hard-core horror film in the mode of something like The Strangers or High Tension. This is when it falters. There’s little characterization to give the audience any reason to care whether anyone in this movie lives or dies. Only the female lead Erin (Sharni Vinson), girlfriend of middle-son Crispian (AJ Bowen), is afforded even the most minimal of back stories. The rest of the characters are little more than variations on the standard horror-film stereotypes and are quickly introduced and forgotten about until their numbers are supposedly up. More egregious however, is the lack of fun in this version of the film. You’re Next succeeds when it embraces the survivalist revenge film mentality with abandon and doesn’t look back. Until it does this, the film simply tries to court too many elements, and proves a muddied ineffective thriller in the process.

Screenwriter Simon Barrett (who also plays the killer behind the tiger mask) and director Adam Wingard share the blame here. They have proven gifted in making the titillating, shocking kind of horror film that You’re Next is at times. But, they stray from that formula a little too often and bog down the proceedings with unnecessary exposition and motivations that could be best revealed during action sequences and not by bringing everything to a pace-killing halt.

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Despite its flaws, You’re Next is an entertaining film. It features a strong female lead, albeit one who’s a tad underdeveloped. It has a few twists and is actually effective when not trying to reach for the brass ring. But it is guilty of wanting to be much more than it is more often than not. Perhaps You’re Next is a movie where it is best to not think too much and just go with it, walk out of the theater and, more than likely, just forget it.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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