You’re Next – Film Review

The Davisons, an upper-class family, are extremely wealthy — but also estranged. In an attempt to mend their broken family ties, Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) and Paul (Rob Moran) Davison decide to celebrate their wedding anniversary by inviting their four children and their children’s significant others to their weekend estate. The celebration gets off to a rocky start, but when crossbow-wielding assailants in animal masks suddenly attack, the Davisons must pull together or die.

Instead of being a darkly chilling, bitingly satirical slasher like it was billed, Adam Wingard‘s You’re Next is a mostly annoying and massively uneventful film that fails to find ways to entertain its audience at nearly every turn. There are a few fun kills to experience along the way, but this is mostly a disappointingly forgettable slasher that doesn’t stand out.

It all starts off fairly strong with an eerie death scene that seems to set the tone for the rest of the movie going forward. A man takes a shower and upon drying himself off, discovers a dead body outside. On the other side of the glass window in front of him are the words “You’re Next” written in blood.

So far, so good right? Well, sadly, the film takes a nosedive from that point onward because it’s shortly thereafter that we meet our main band of characters who are insufferably annoying. They constantly talk over each other and yell at each other in various scenes. It’s supposed to be humorous but the only thing it made me do was want to rip out my hair.

Don’t get me wrong – there are still some fun moments to be had in You’re Next, but they’re so few and far between that, unfortunately, I cannot in good conscience call this a good movie. It’s rather a massive missed opportunity that could’ve been so much fun but ended up being half fun, half annoying.

A lot of You’re Next reminded me of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett‘s Ready or Not, which was a black comedy horror that essentially followed a young newlywed woman who is hunted by her spouse’s wealthy Satan-worshipping family as part of a crazy wedding night ritual.

Now, of course, not all of that is present in this film but the tone is extremely similar and so is the sense of humor. The only difference is that Ready or Not was able to execute it far better than this film. The script feels way too in your face, for starters. Screenwriter Simon Barrett needed to find some subtle ways to make this film a biting satirical slasher but he shoves every single joke right in your face to the point where it just becomes tired, old, and annoying after the first act.

This film has garnered quite the cult following ever since its initial release back in 2011 and I honestly don’t really know why. It’s not one of the worst horror movies of that decade by a long shot, but it’s also not one of the best either. It’s just one of those movies where after it’s done, you’ll forget about it in a day or two. At least, that’s how I felt.

Adam Wingard’s horror slasher You’re Next fails to impress with an irritating sense of humor and a band of hugely unlikable characters that’ll get on your nerves.