I saw the film You're Next tonight at a pre-screening in St. Louis. I was excited to see the movie, knowing it by the reputation it garnered at film festivals back in 2011. Lionsgate has been sitting on it ever since for some unknown reason. I had heard the film was great.
Having finally gotten to see it I will agree that it is pretty damn good. The few trailers that I have seen floating around really undersell this movie by focusing on the barest plot description: THIS IS A HOME INVASION MOVIE WITH ANIMAL MASKS!
This ad campaign really does the film a great disservice. Superficially it is a pretty standard home invasion premise, but the various other elements that make up the film make it notable and enjoyable.
The first is the cast of characters. The film is centered around an affluent family that is coming together for the first time in a long while, the grown children bringing along their respective significant others to meet the family for the first time. The film does a good job of setting up the tensions at play in this gathering. The situation feels quite relatable and much humor is wrung out of the interplay between these characters. This film features one of the more memorable characters in a horror film that I've seen in a number of years.
That's another thing: There is quite a bit of humor at play in this film. I wouldn't say it moves into the "horror comedy" genre necessarily but there is quite a bit to laugh at, again just from the family situation. Much of the humor is dialog based and later there is quite a bit of black humor. If I had to compare it to anything it would be some of the dialogue and arguments from In Bruges.
What I think is really off base are the reports trying to compare this film to Scream. While there is humor, there is nothing really knowing or meta about it. The characters aren't directly mentioning or mocking tropes. Instead, this is the rare horror film that features some characters that are actually competent, that actually do the things an audience may yell at the screen, wishing the characters would do. While we often find ourselves watching horror films for the sake of seeing the cast get picked off, this film makes it so gratifying for the protagonists to try and fight back.
And damn, if you are attracted to the film for the violence, this film delivers. It can be extremely graphic, but the film was made with a deft hand that knows just when to cut away so as to not dilute the impact. The animal masked killers don't garner scares or build tension by just sneaking around in the background (though they do this early on) Nor are there a bunch of ridiculous forced in jump scare like in this year's The Purge. Instead, when these killers attack, the tension is built by just how intense and direct these attacks are. The film makes good use of sound to really sell the power behind the cross bow bolts that crash through windows and doors and skulls. The attackers come in for direct attacks axes and machetes. There are many moments that border on gratuitous but somehow gratifying and that garnered applause from the audience tonight. There are some very memorable moments indeed.
Overall, while I wouldn't want to oversell this movie and treat it like the second coming of the horror genre or something as it's reputation has grown in the blogosphere echo-chamber, I really enjoyed this film. It is a surprisingly character focused, often humorous and hard hitting film that really shows that the filmmakers know the value of good setup and even better pay off 8/10.