If a comedy is a game of rugby, then horror is the dressage phase of a three day equestrian event.
There is a rigid formal structure to, er, cleave to, and success or failure is eked out of nuances and minor variations within that sturdy frame. All the more so with the Home Invasion sub-genre, of which form Adam Wingard’s You’re Next, which has been in a holding pattern waiting for clearance to land at Lionsgate international for nearly two years, is a superior example.
An adult family is convening at a remote and cavernous mansion in rural Missouri to celebrate the wedding anniversary of parents no-one seems to like. The four offspring are Drake (Joe Swanberg), Crispian (AJ Bowen), Felix (Nicholas Tucci) and Aimee (Amy Seimetz). All arrive bearing significant others of a more or less waspish bearing: all but Crispian, that is, whose Erin (Sharni Vinson) is a wide-eyed and wholesome Australian who, at first sight, might have been the girl living next door to the Minogues.
Erin discloses that she was a graduate student who shacked up with Crispian while he was her academic supervisor, a scenario which Drake views with evident distaste. Then Aimee’s boyfriend Tariq (Ti West) discloses that he is an underground film producer. In Drake’s eye, this is even worse. Father (Rob Moran) creases his cultivated brow ineffectually as bread rolls begin to fly.
A few hundred yards away a gang of masked men are about to perpetrate brutal acts on the neighbour Erik (Larry Fessenden) and his sullen teenaged girlfriend Kelly (Margaret Laney). Erik is an unpleasant middle aged man with an earring, and Kelly scowls at him admirably as he completes his manly business. She sticks the Dwight Twilley Band on high rotate as he showers (perhaps still “looking for the magic” lacking in his embrace) and is not thereafter around for long enough for the resentment she transparently harbours to make any difference. But then, nor is he.
Meanwhile back at the castle, the delicate atmosphere is quickly punctured over dinner by fraternal sniping: Drake nettles Crispian for his underachieving and philandering academic ways, while mother (Barbara Crampton) whimpers neurotically. Felix and his gothic girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn) look on malevolently, and we are just beginning to wonder what wholesome Erin mut be making of all this when crossbow bolts start flying through the window. Amusingly, despite this unnerving intrusion the family bickering continues. For all their braggadocio, none of them shows much backbone against the intruders except Erin, who turns out to be far more resourceful than anyone (murderous gang included) expects.
Thus proceeds a well directed, thoughtfully edited, well paced horror thriller with a couple of neat and unexpected twists along the way. Wingard has fun with the grand guignol, expertly flexes the tension inherent in the format, and never forgets to leaven what might otherwise have been a grim experience with snippy humour and sharp dialogue. There are a couple of ingenious kills along the way, including one which I rather think counts as a small-scale homage to the lawnmower scene in Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead.
The genre certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea: make no mistake there is plenty of gore and a jump-scare on autorotate every five minutes or so (rather like Dwight Tilley’s Looking for the Magic), but this is an entertaining and well executed film.
You’re Next is in cinemas 30th August 2013.
Director: Adam Wingard
Stars: Sharni Vinson,Joe Swanberg, Nicholas Tucci, AJ Bowen, Barbara Crampton
Runtime: 96min
Country: USA
Film Rating: 
