Why do I always come back to home invasion films? Clearly whenever I watch one I always complain to myself why I consistently put myself through them. I mean the last time I did the 12 Days of Halloween I came across the great allegory that was Hush. There is always the potential to be surprised by a genre to which you expect nothing from besides cheap scares and a lack of point besides horror. That is why I tried You’re Next this time around, lauded for its well done breaking down of the genre tropes I despise. Directed by talented up and coming director Adam Wingard, this film seems like it could easily defy my cynical perception of home invasion horror. I mean it has a shoestring budget, which I think often horror movies try harder and excel with a more grungy style. Though with all my glowing about potentially enjoying yet another film from this bloated horror genre, will I instead be setting myself up for failure?
You’re Next is a film about a family being brutally murdered in their parent’s new home. Clear and simple much like other premises from the genre, boiling down to a brutal exploitation flick of terrifying realistic circumstances. The way You’re Next entices you is not through its idea, but rather how it gleefully subverts expectation of how this horror thriller goes down. What happens when one of the people in the house has an extensive background in survival? There is this enjoyment that comes from a sense of catharsis in this film, gruesome as it might be there is fun to be had in seeing this girl overcome the animal mask wearing psychos. We watch as family drama pervades the disaster and how the film chooses to dissect petty problems families may have even within a time of crisis. Of course you toss in a sprinkle of black comedy and your cocktail of a home invasion film is complete! I mean all sarcasm aside this idea is one of the better that comes from the genre. Certainly nothing groundbreaking in ways of themes, but still witty and clever enough to think some things through.
Onto the gripe however, this film is extremely basic. I mean genre fun aside, this film is barebones on all fronts except the script being clever and the action tantalizing. They create a toxic family dynamic and do next to nothing with it except what you might expect. People bicker, siblings feud, parents sigh and everyone is in a terrible mood. It is not exactly the most charming scenario for a film or a cast and I suppose that is what makes their deaths much less gruesome. I mean how they will inevitably die (because it’s a home invasion film) will be physically gruesome. After all it is exploitation, but the factor of us caring if they live or die is a non-entity in this film. They dedicate nothing to creating multi-faceted characters and instead throw everything into the one girl trying to keep everyone alive in this chaotic disaster of a family get-together. I feel like this move was to make the subversion of tropes more engaging, but it just makes part of the film too much of a standard fare to engage the viewer.
When the film does become a slow-burning hunter stalking the prey thriller it is at its best. For such a small budget the film looks fantastic in moments. Killing sequences are shot in such ways that you feel like applauding afterwards. It is smart and clever in that sense without being needlessly cruel to the viewer’s sensibilities. Exploitation done in cathartic moderation is much better than it being there for the sake of having it. Heck even the pitch black humour makes you go “HA! Oh…oh god why did I just laugh…” You question yourself after this film and for good reason because the script is that good in moments, not so much offering a sense of levity but just creepy humour that still works in such a twisted scenario. More matter of fact rather than in your face and I thought was a nice touch.
This is a film that is not for everyone, especially since it is an exploitation film making fun of other exploitation films in the genre without it being a clear parody. The more I talk about this film the more it sounds that I love it, but unfortunately I have too many gripes with its decision making to outright love everything. Exploitation is not fun for me, I do get a kick out of black humour but not while other people are being slaughtered in creative and gleeful ways (well besides the villains of course because then they are just asking for it). I don’t like this cast, but sometimes the film is needlessly cruel to them. Almost as if it needed to fit a quota for how many people to kill in a movie. The family is dysfunctional, yes, and some are bad people but that doesn’t mean that I want to see them brutally killed in macabre ways.
The best way for me to describe my own experience for the film is mixed. There are elements I can enjoy, but others I find needless. The funny thing about Tucker and Dale vs Evil and them killing off the cast of college kids was because of their own stupidity and not because crazed psychos in animal masks are trapping and then stalking their prey after days of analyzing them. That is where the subtle satire plays against the film as it is still in moments just a home invasion film. It is frankly boring in its set-up playing off the most basic family drama of a rich family without much to any of its characters before the inevitable hammer coming down on them. Horror asks us to be scared, not grossed out. The easiest way to scare is us by offering us people to feel for and I feel like You’re Next is more concerned with its black comedy and playing off tropes to notice about other important elements to a horror. I think there is of course one character that we can care for, Sharni Vinson’s Erin. The final girl of this film and a great one at that in the sense of screen presence. Every moment of her fighting back is enjoyable and truly a treat for fans of a more powerful female lead that doesn’t just run off screaming all the time.
You’re Next is well done technically to the point of almost feeling more like an exercise in deconstructing something than being a well-rounded film. Adam Wingard’s assured direction makes the film feel sleek and stylish, the camera flashing scene especially. There is problems though that arise through a sense of exploitation that the genre finds a hard time getting around for me. Creative kills in a non-cathartic fashion is not enticing to me as a viewer. I prefer to be terrified than grossed out and disgusted. I like my horror that makes me think about the world in a different light or one that asks questions. This is more a fun genre film that effective deconstructs exactly what it wants while still adhering to it. It wants to be witty and gory, it wants to be hard hitting and comedic, but I can’t say it achieves a balance. It is an effective film, still landing on the positive, but not one for me.
Rating: C+Three C+s already, that is weird. How oddly consistent this time has been. While one of those C+s may change at a later date, I can hardly say that this years 12 Days of Halloween has been nothing short of interesting. Interesting films that are much more interesting than the ones I have watched last year (up to this point). I could say this time around the conventional has already become the unconventional as each horror film has in some way created unique experiences within horror for me.
So have you seen You’re Next? What are your thoughts on the home invasion subgenre of horror? Feel free to leave a comment down below and don’t forget to have yourself an awesome day!
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