Title: You’re Next
Director: Adam Wingard
Released: 2011
Starring: Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, A.J.
Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Barbara Crampton, Rob Moran, Margaret Laney, Amy Seimetz,
Ti West
Plot: The assorted members of the Davidson family brought
together for the wedding anniversary of their parents Aubrey (Crampton) and
Paul (Moran). A reunion which is soon cut short when the family come under
attack from a group of animal masked killers.
Review: Despite being unleashed on the festival circuit in
2011, it took another two years for this film to finally get a proper release,
which since then has only seen it further the growing influence of the “Mumblegore” genre.
An offshoot of the New York mumblecore productions, this Los Angeles based
style of film making is currently shaking up the honestly overworked Horror
genre, with a style based around micro budgets, cerebral plotting and minimal studio interference.
It is also a sub-genre which so far has produced the likes of Ti West’s “House
of the Devil” and E.L. Katz’s “Cheap Thrills”.
Despite being part of a genre so closely linked to
mumblecore, any concerns about yuppie kids trying to remake "Clerks" and instead rambling away on random topics while
the film appears to have been made up on the fly, should fear not as despite
the fancy sub-genre title this film still fits into the standard slasher format, with the
main difference being that the budget its being shot with is well below what
your standard horror film has to play with, which is unquestionably the case
here as director Wingard made the film for a paltry One million dollars.
Despite the limited budget this film is certainly not
lacking in style or creativity, with the setting kept to the manor house
location for the most part, with only a brief diversion to a neighbouring
property to keep the action fresh aswell as to enforce the sense of isolation,
which is only furthered by the pitch black rural setting. At the same time
Wingard is clearly not trying to reinvent the wheel as the film soon drops into the
standard stalk and slash blueprint. However it is at the moment that the film
kicks into this gear with a surprise crossbow attack by our animal masked
killers that the Wingard pulls the rug from under our feet, as he unleashes his
surprise as rather than let the process of elimination slowly reveal who will
be the final girl here Wingard reveals her straight away, as mere minuites
after the killers have claimed their first victim Erin (Vinson) leaps into
action and proving that she has no intentions to waiting until she forfills the
needed criteria of the final girl.
Erin really is a major selling point here outside of the
cool look the animal masked killers have and who manage to break the worrying
trend of cool masks = awful film (see: The Purge, The Strangers). Thankfully
Erin’s quick reactions to the situation are explained away by the reveal that
she grew up with a survivalist father who taught her skills which she certainly
puts to good use here, along with a real knack for improvising on the fly as
she frequently proves over the course of the film.
The rest of the family though it has to be said are pretty
much there to add to the healthy body count, as they spend the film running
around aimlessly and find ever more unique ways to fall victim to the killers,
who like Erin equally don’t lack creativity as they set up several ingenious
traps which caught even an established genre fan like myself by surprise. The
fact that they don’t talk for the most part of the film equally adds to the
tension which surrounds them while bringing to mind memories of the finale of
“The Wicker Man”. At the same time it is their single minded determination
which really makes them quite chilling to watch for the first half of the film
while perhaps losing their edge once their plans begin to fall apart and they
start begin talking amongst themselves more.
Sadly the rest of the cast are largely forgettable with no
real difference between any of them, which makes it hard to care about losing
any of them, especially when they are so interchangeable from each other and
really only there to add to the body count which honestly is the sole advantage
of having some of them around. Ultimately it’s hard to feel anything for most
of the characters when we lose one of them with perhaps a couple of exceptions,
which provoke a reaction more than joy at another slain yuppie.
Thankfully though the kills make up for the disposable
nature of the these characters and here we certainly get to a lot of creativity
from the opening crossbow attack on the family dinner party things steadily
escalate with the killers soon proving themselves to a resourceful bunch as
they frequently pull out some great surprise kills while many are delivered
with sense of automation as the killers go about their work with the animal
masks only adding to the chills. Thanks to Erin’s unique skill set the kill
streak also goes both ways as she shows herself not only handy in a fight, but
with her own cunning line of booby traps, from window spikes through to the
much talked about blender to the head she soon makes it a very bad day to be a
killer.
Perhaps one of the fresher horror movies of recent times, if perhaps down to the fact that its not distracting itself with the paranormal, zombies or one of the other overwork sub-genres and instead gives us a back to basics slasher with a few new twists. If this means that the future of horror lies in the Mumblegore genre, it is hard to say from this sole example but certainly more promising than anything currently in the mainstream.
No comments:
Post a Comment