You’re Next

Released: 2013

Directed By: Adam Wingard

Starring: Sharni Vinson, Rob Moran, Barbard Crompton

Certificate: 18

Reviewed By: Darryl Griffiths

In recent times, we’ve seen two sub-genres within the horror world jostling for attention from fright-craving audiences. The more traditional, haunted house offerings such as James Wan’s ‘The Conjuring’ and the resurgence of the home-invasion film, with the skewered politics and moral compasses that coerced through the narrative vein of ‘The Purge’ in particular. Rocking a fetching yet intimidating animal ‘mask’ of his own, director Adam Wingard’s ‘You’re Next’ has effectively sneaked up on us after successful stints on the festival circuit.

With Wingard’s career on the rise (V/H/S), it’s perhaps fitting that proceedings here take place ‘Down Under’. We are immediately introduced to the heads of the Davison family (Rob Moran’s and Barbara Crampton’s Paul and Aubrey respectively), living the high life in their lavish albeit secluded new home. Eager to celebrate their wedding anniversary in style, they plot to reunite their eclectic collective of siblings.

Despite their individual reservations, cue the arrival of bushy-beard lecturer Crispian (AJ Bowen) and his headstrong student girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson), along with his antagonising brother Drake (Joe Swanberg), outcast Felix (Nicholas Tucci) and their ‘enthusiastic’ sister Aimee (Amy Seimetz). Reinforcing the doubts of attending and proving unfortunate for their fellow partners, the simmering tension between the family boils over whilst fading quickly into insignificance, as they become besieged by a terrifying threat from the outside. Cross bows at the ready..

Possessing a ‘charcoal’ like sense of humour, ‘You’re Next’ takes the familiar themes of familial dysfunction/class divisions along with its setting and subverts them as Wingard takes the material in wonderfully warped directions befitting of the genre. The unsettling yet tongue in cheek nature of its initial verbal exchanges, lays the foundations exquisitely for its obligatory descend, into blood splattered territory.

For all of director Wingard’s toying with the audience from a storytelling standpoint, it never diminishes the impact of its intended scares. From a decidedly brutal yet inspired riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’, to the uncompromising and inventive use of the characters’ ‘weapons of choice’, the film cranks up the body count and tension with pin-point precision whilst retaining a sense of fun. The latter aided by a well developed cast, with Vinson’s feisty turn as sharp-witted Erin in particular, a welcome deviation from the stereotypical female eye-candy that dominates many a fellow genre entry.

With only the needless exposition of its nonetheless satisfying ending a minor niggle, ‘You’re Next’ has little difficulty in cementing itself as the best horror film of 2013 and Wingard as a bright light for the genre. A deeply unpleasant yet brutally brilliant slice of modern terror that refreshingly embraces the ludicrous excesses in spirit of its old school inspirations.