Review: Adam Wingard’s YOU’RE NEXT Is A Darkly Comedic Home Invasion Horror
There’s quite a lot to recommend in director Adam Wingard’s You’re Next, a darkly comedic home invasion film which takes the horror sub-genre and flips it on its head. It’s all very entertaining and as it builds, it becomes even funnier and funnier.
Well-to-do married couple Aubrey and Paul Davison (horror icon Barbara Crampton and Rob Moran) take to the Davison country home to spend the weekend with their children Crispian, Felix, Drake and Aimee (A.J. Bowen, Nicholas Tucci, A. J. Bowen, Joe Swanberg and Amy Seimetz). Familial tensions run high, but that all falls into insignificance when then the house comes under attack by masked assailants. The only person in the group who has it together to fight back is Crispian’s girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson), a tough-as-nails heroine with hidden depths in kicking ass.
On the surface, this 2011 film might seem like business as usual for the genre, but Wingard and frequent screenwriter Simon Barrett have fun with the premise, setting up a game of cat and mouse where the roles are constantly reversed. The one location enssures that this has strong tension, but there’s also plenty of bloody action as the Davison family are killed off one by one. The comedy comes from the bickering family interactions and also the total incompetence of the killer gang – who are totally out of their depth when Sharni Vinson’s Erin starts to fight back.
You’re Next leans into the 1980s horror vibe, from the opening kill (featuring Larry Fessenden and Kate Lyn Sheil) to the musical score. Winagard takes a lot of inspiration from genre master John Carpenter and it plays like a fusion of Assault On Precinct 13 and Halloween. The shadow of Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion chiller, The Strangers also looms large over this, but Wingard and Barrett’s decision to up the humour adds to the freshness, so that this side-steps any real comparisons.
A horror that takes the well-worn tropes and has fun with them, You’re Next is an entertaining flick with a good cast having a good time playing an assortment of unlikeable characters. This tight and confined chamber piece has wit and ingenuity, offering up an assortment of stand-out moments and wince-inducing kills.
Blu-ray Special Features
You’re Next was a solid hit when it came out in 2011 and its reputation has only grown over the last decade or so. This cult appreciation means that Second Sight has gone to town with a selection of great special features. You get two commentaries – one with Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett and another with Wingard, Barrett and stars Sharni Vinson and Barbara Crampton.
There’s a whole host of interviews, with in-depth chats with Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, producers Keith Calder and Jess Wu Calder, stars AJ Bowen Joe Swanberg and Amy Seimetz and Production Designer Tom Hammock. Throw in a video essay by Tim Coleman, animated storyboards and a ‘vintage’ making-of documentary – and you have the whole package!
