By ANDY GILCHRIST
Staff Writer
The horror genre was dead. For years, it was filled with only the goriest, most exploitive films imaginable, formulaic trash that everyone walked away from thinking about how they just wasted 90 plus minutes of their lives. But these people had no one to blame but themselves. Year after year, torture-porn movies like Saw and Hostel and jump-scare king Paranormal Activity racked up millions of dollars and spawned handfuls of inferior sequels.
But within the past year and a half, there has been a minor Renaissance. After the genre-shredding The Cabin in the Woods made waves last year, this past August’s You’re Next has given horror fans something new to buzz about. Though it doesn’t rewrite the rulebook like Cabin, it does make audiences jump, scream, and somehow laugh, making it not just a solid horror movie, but a film that everyone will enjoy.
The film opens with the Davison family gathering at their parents’ fixer-upper in the woods for their 30th wedding anniversary. Mom (Barbara Crampton) and Dad (Rob Moran) are joined by their four children and their significant others for the celebration. Among the family is Erin (Sharni Vinson), master’s student girlfriend of the unsuccessful Crispian (A.J. Bowen), who’s a shy girl clearly out of place in such a close family setting.
The festivities quickly take a dark turn, though, when a houseguest is killed by crossbow the first night at dinner. Arrows quickly shoot through the dining room and the family is left screaming in chaos. Every method of escape has been eliminated; the neighbors are dead, cars have been sabotaged, and cell signals are jammed. As the night wares on, the family is picked off one by one, until Erin reveals herself to be more than just arm candy. Like Liam Neeson, she too has a special set of skills, and the film quickly transforms from The Strangers to an R-rated Home Alone, leading to an appropriately bloody conclusion.
You’re Next is directed by Adam Wingard, an independent filmmaker whose work has gone under the radar for far too long. Having helmed cult horror hits like Pop Skull and A Horrible Way to Die, as well as contributing segments to the stellar horror anthologies V/H/S and The ABCs of Death, Wingard has carved himself a significant niche in the indie film scene, one that is now rapidly expanding. Having worked outside the studio system for so long, Wingard is able to make the film he wants, rather than the standard by-the-book movie that is guaranteed to quickly turn a profit at the box office before heading to the abyss of forgotten films.
His voice is clear from the beginning, showing through in the dialogue between characters as they arrive at the house. The first act of the film, while containing some scary scenes, focuses on the family, authentically portraying the bickering and competition among siblings and making them seem like real people, not stock characters plugged into a horror movie formula. Even after the killing starts, two brothers continue to bicker about who can run faster when someone has to make a break from the house to try and find help. It’s scenes like this that make one realize that the film is actually pretty funny. Now, a lot of it is dark humor; after killing a victim, one of the killers sits down next to another corpse on the couch, as if they’re just two friends watching TV. Later on, another killer takes off his mask to reveal that he’s had his iPod on the whole time.
But this is a horror film, and it will scare you. It presents some of the most terrifying slashers, visually, in several years, made even scarier by the fact that it isn’t revealed until 2/3 of the way through the film how many of them there are. Each of them wears a plastic animal mask, such as a lamb or fox, and they’re all dressed in black from head to toe. They don’t carry guns; they’re too sadistic for that. Instead, they carry weapons designed to draw the maximum amount of blood, such as knives, machetes, and that crossbow. They roam around outside the house, stalking their prey throughout the first act, until the killing begins and they invade. Their anonymity and question of motive makes them even more chilling, so much so that when it’s revealed why they’re at the house, it’s a bit of a letdown, a little air out the balloon that is a great film. But their identities are never revealed, only hinted at, and the carnage they bring down upon the family cannot be ignored or easily forgotten. Never has the image of a white tiger reflected on a window been so petrifying.
Finally, one cannot talk about You’re Next without talking about Sharni Vinson. In a cast made up of relative unknowns, Vinson is the most famous; her biggest role so far is a supporting turn in Step Up 3D. So you probably don’t know her. Her performance in this film is a revelation, playing a woman who is just as dangerous as the blade-wielding, faceless men hunting her. While one might assume her character would luck into the cliché role of Final Girl, like almost every other female horror protagonist, she takes it willingly when she jumps into action after the arrows start flying. She doesn’t stay alive by getting lucky hits on the killer, she lures him to her and is the one who does the attacking. When she gets covered in blood, she doesn’t fall to the floor shrieking, she just keeps going. Vinson is convincing as the uncomfortable outsider for the first half hour, before immediately and forcefully transforming into a killing machine when attacked. With this film, she has clearly announced her presence in the acting world and it is hopefully a sign of great things to come.
We are living in a Dark Age of horror films. What do we have to look forward to? Well, there’s a remake of Carrie out this October, Paranormal Activity 5 already has a release date, and they’re developing a sequel to this summer’s dud The Purge for some reason. Though the outlook is dim, it’s films like You’re Next, filled with talented actors and filmmakers, that make the future seem a bit more promising.
