21/03/2017
MOVIE REVIEW – You’re Next (2011) – 4/5
>
Have been wanting to track this down and watch it for ages. Plus I’ve got two degrees of separation from the main star Sharni Vinson (we’ve both worked in films with the same boom operator). Okay, it’s a long bow connection but it’s a connection.
And it’s a damn good film. Well worth the effort.
>
In a remote location in the wilds of the USA (Missouri actually) the Davison family gather at their isolated vacation house. When they say house, mere mortals would say mansion. These guys are loaded.
The siblings and their partners set about meeting, greeting and getting down to bickering. Over an extremely tense dinner a lot of bad blood begins to pour out. All attention turns to only daughter Aimee’s friend Tariq, who breaks from the conversation to gaze out the window.
A crossbow bolt brings his promising film making career to an abrupt end, as does the dinner party. The gathering then comes under attack from a group of masked assailants and lock themselves in the house.
Most of the party turn to water, but young spunky Australian girl Erin (Sharni Vinson) has the knowledge and attitude to turn the tables on the attackers and survive.
What follows is a trail of mayhem and destruction that links back to the pre-titles sequence and unveils the origin and MO of the attackers.
Erin survives, barely, much to the chagrin of the Police Officer that mistakenly shoots her at the end.
>
Sorry for being vague at the end of the Plot, just didn’t want to give too many secrets away.
I had heard that this movie was listed in the top ten horror movies in 2013 and presented a new look at the standard slasher/home invasion sub genre.
And it does. And it delivers in spades.
The opening is standard fair with a prelude murder of a couple, who just had s*x, by a masked bandit in a lonely cottage somewhere. So we are presented with a stereotypical slasher movie, a la Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc.
The significance of this event is shown in the very next scene when the Davison parents drive past the house and mention the owner in terms we can immediately attribute.
So again, we still only believe this is a simple slasher movie.
The introduction to all the children and their partners is excellent. The only pair that anyone can relate or empathise with are Crispian and his new girlfriend Erin (our heroine). The rest are presented in such a way that you just want them to be offed as quickly as possible.
After the initial attack, we lose the obligatory sacrificial lamb and the alpha male is wounded. Our heroine shows her mettle and begins to safeguard the surrounds, while the rest do stupid things and get more people killed.
We find out, almost as an aside, what makes Erin tick. She grew up in a survivalist camp, so had training. This just raises her higher in our expectations. A smart, trained and well prepared “final girl”. Something sadly missing for so long. And she’s Australian. Go Aussies. Just reinforcing the stereotype that we are all Crocodile Dundee at heart.
At the end of the second act the true nature of the killers is revealed. They aren’t your ordinary run of the mill serial killers, and they don’t like their own getting killed off. They also howl like big babies when they get injured. I won’t spoil the reason behind them, sadly it was a little obvious but it just makes us want Erin to succeed all the more.
One might think I liked the plot. And you’d be right. It was smart and took a standard slasher story line and turned it a bit on its head. A few twists and turns were thrown in for good measure. Some of them were foretold or obvious, but the action happening around them doesn’t detract.
The budget was supposedly around $1,000,000, which is impressive given the quality of the cast. Looking deeper most of the cast were up and coming actors, including Vinson who had just moved away from TV soaps to the US, so may have picked this up as a way of cracking into the scene. It was filmed before she made Bait 3D and Patrick, but came out afterwards. Another clever move by the producers as they were able to leap onto the coat tails of other films. All the action happens in only two locations, another clever ploy to keep costs down.
The deaths are very well done as well. We get everything from standard fair, i.e. knives, axes, machetes, etc, through to a mix master to the head. The blood flows and should satisfy any gorehound out there.
If you’ve got a free night and have the chance to track this down, do so and give it a look. You won’t be disappointed.
https://youtu.be/gHhtpW6xHg4
http://www.hollywood.com 'You're Next' Trailer Director: Adam Wingard Starring: Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen When the Davison family comes under att...
![MOVIE REVIEW – [REC]4: Apocalypse (2014) – 3.5/5WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERSThe last zombie film I managed to fit in during...](https://img3.medioq.com/122/304/3490379031223044.jpg)
