Movie Review: You're Next

You're Next not only begins as a typical horror movie, but it was also advertised as one. The trailer (linked below) as well as the posters hinted at a film consisting solely of, "Ooh, look at these menacing guys in creepy animal masks who terrify people! This is our main source of fear, guys! This is the best we got!" This mentality was played out long by the time that the modern go-to template for home invasion movies, 2008's The Strangers, was released, so I and most of the moviegoing public wrote this off as yet another knock-off in that field.

Boy, was I wrong.

This may be from a purely immediate reactionary standpoint, but I had a blast with this movie. Similar to my quick realization that I formed an intense emotional bond with The Place Beyond the Pines, You're Next is shaping up to be quite possibly the most fun I've had at the movies this year (with the exception of The World's End). This might just be due to the way my opinion of the movie progressively changed: As the film evolved in style and tone, I found that the trajectory of quality was quite the upswing.

Take, for example, the opening. After a standard home invasion murder complete with obligatory jump-scare, we get a married couple moving into a new house. Check. Introductions to guests who will most likely have stock traits so that not much gets in the way of their deaths. Check. Suspicions that something is not right in the house, only to be quickly shrugged aside, the audience meanwhile fully aware that these assumptions had merit. Check. A family dynamic courtesy of a reunion built around the parents' anniversary. Che- Wait, that's new.

And this is the first sign that this movie is trying something different. From here, the movie uses the standard tropes of the tried-and-true format to not-so-subtly progress into something that's less of a horror film and more of a black comedy (one scene features the parents' daughter crying over the fact that her family thinks she's not as capable of running to get rescue as her siblings) with a horror format. While the family relationship doesn't remain at the forefront for long (it becomes more of an implied driving force for many of the later moments), it paves the way for interesting scenes and concepts.

One scene, in particular, seems like this film's equivalent of the bike scene in The Cabin in the Woods (for the record, that did horror movie deconstruction much better than this film, but I think that this scene works better than that film's solely due to the hilariously brutal shock gore here). The animal mask guys also hint at this movie's approach through the quietly funny way in which they act, cutting through the potential fright their appearances could muster. At one point, one sits down nonchalantly next to a corpse after murdering someone, the humor stemming from his staid stance. They're also on the receiving end of some of the comedy, such as the Home Alone-esque extent to which a couple of them get attacked.

Ultimately, what ends up working the most in this film's favor is it's satirical elements. By the end of the movie's second act, the film drops all notion of the "horror" aspect advertised for a bitterly funny and violent edge. The movie deliberately plays a good amount of this section for comedy, even though the context for these events is anything but. It's also giddily fun and an all-around really enjoyable movie. While not nearly at the same levels of visceral satisfaction as The Cabin in the Woods, the conclusion of this film has a gratifying edge that made me squirm and gasp with glee. Despite the fact that the final event of the movie comes as the result of an impractical judgment on one fairly level-headed character's part, the payoff that results is one of the most insanely awesome abrupt endings since 2011's Hanna.

By the end of it all, I could say so much more about this movie (such as the fact that Sharni Vinson is fantastic and needs to get more roles as a result of this, or how cool the John Carpenter-esque soundtrack is, or about how we need to give the ludicrous number of GODDAMN SLOW-MO SHOTS a rest), but the fun factor ends up being the greatest strength of the film. As soon as the movie ends, complete with the film's main musical motif ("Looking for the Magic" by Dwight Twilley Band, which, trust me, makes a hell of a lot more sense in context) playing over the credits, I wanted to not only immediately buy a DVD copy of the film, but also talk about it to somebody, anybody who would listen. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being one of my favorite movies of the year.