Director: Adam Wingard
Writer: Simon Barrett
Stars: Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen
Plot: When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of the victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.
Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
Rotten Tomatoes Score: Critics 75% Audience 59%
Why I Watched it: This got really good buzz in the genre community when it was doing the festival circuit and of course I love horror films.
Thoughts: Here’s one of those horror films that got over hyped before it came out, people were talking about how kick ass and great this horror film was in most cases the hype is better than the film. One thing I’ve learned about horror fans they see so much crap when they see even a decent film there lose their shit over it. The other interesting thing about this film is it has a bunch of directors in the cast, so just for trivia sake it’s kind of fun.
What I liked: The premise and how it’s set up is pretty cool. The film starts and it looks like a family drama, they get together and fight and blah blah then the dinner scene happens and the film not only becomes a horror film but a siege film. Honestly that’s the high point of the film, if you didn’t know what the film was about that scene is a jaw dropper. So the film becomes about these masked people attacking and trying to kill everyone in the house. So it’s a home invasion siege movie cause it’s a very big house.
The acting is hit or miss but for me Sharni Vinson is the standout, she has an interesting character and back story and what I liked about it is we learn about it as we go. She gets to kick ass here and at one point the film almost turns into a Die Hard rip-off, and I guess in some ways it is. Vinson is not only very good she pulls off the physicality, she’s a believable threat.
The action is pretty good and the kills are decent, the tension and atmosphere is good. The one thing the movie tries to do is not only pull off the horror but also the why is this happening and who is behind it, I’ll give them credit for trying a bit more and actually trying to go full out.
What I didn’t Like: Even though I give the filmmakers credit for trying I do think they tried too hard and they throw too much into the film, I think it could have been tighter and more streamlined, they through a couple of twists too many into the mix, honestly they didn’t need it. It kind of muddy the waters. The film should have focused on Vinson fighting off the invaders but they decided to throw a bunch of family drama in there as well. They also tried to get very weird and strange, there’s a scene where a character is trying to get another character to have sex on a bed where there’s a dead body and not only a dead body but a relative of the person she is trying to have sex with, yes it’s distasteful and really it’s weird for the sake of weird. The one problem I’ve had with Adam Wingard’s films is he sometimes tries to force different genre’s together and conflicting elements and sometimes it just does work, square peg round hole.
Even though it’s only 95 minutes it drags, and the thing won’t end we have a couple of false finishes and I’ll be honest it was wearing out it’s welcome.
Final Thoughts: You’re Next isn’t a total waste, there’s some good ideas and a good lead performance and it’s a lot better than most horror films but it should and could have been better, so I was a little disappointed.
Rating: 5/10
Movie Burner Entertainment 