I didn’t expect to laugh as much as I did during “You’re Next”. Don’t start having panic attacks, horror aficionados. All of the humor is intentional. Not once did I laugh at the film; only with it. To those still worried this will detract from the film, rest assured it doesn’t. This is still a horror film at the end of the day, a brutal and tense one at that.
The humor present in the proceedings comes organically. There may be times it seems Adam Wingard is poking fun at conventions, but most of it is to breathe life into the characters. This isn’t lame humor you’ll find in the beginning of a slasher. It’s meant to develop the characters and give them an identity.
Take for example the relationship between Crispian (AJ Bowen) & Drake (Joe Swanberg). One’s a teacher dating his former student, Erin (Sharni Vinson), the other is seemingly a mama’s boy leeching off of his parents. They engage in a heated during family dinner that’s admittedly funny. Even funnier is that they’re too engrossed in their fight to discover a fellow family member has been severely harmed. Even then, a few jabs seep through during the inevitable chaos.
The attackers in question are masked home invaders. The film opens with them killing the wealthy Davison family’s neighbors as to not have any witnesses. It’s also arguably for practice, what with them painting “You’re Next” on the window. From here, they sneak around the dense woods like Solid Snake before feeding on more prey. Not to give away their mission statement, but it’s more grounded with social commentary than one would expect.
Not that a home invasion film needs social commentary. Hell, the killers don’t even need a motif! All that’s necessary is for them to sneak around the house, their reflections lightly seen in windows and mirrors, to elicit chills. Wingard perfects this formula, but adds his own twist. By adding social commentary and slight satire, he sets his film apart from others in the genre and makes the film more timeless.
You may think I’ve skipped over the characters due to them being generic. Such is not the case. They may seem so at the start. One gets the feeling they’re spoiled rich folk. Wingard does this to throw the audience off and toy with their perception. The latter, I assume, is to have people cheer for their deaths, only to feel guilty afterward. I could be digging too deep into this, as the crowd I seen this with was horrible. Most didn’t know what to expect, so they disturbingly laughed during the intense moments. And this is (mostly) realistic violence they’re cackling at.
There’s one character specifically that I want to talk about. I can’t do so out of fear of spoiling the film. As I stated earlier, Wingard messes with the conventional characters to throw us off guard. Even if you think you know what part each person is playing, their characteristics will be more amplified than expected. All I’ll say is one character in particular is the best character I’ve seen in a horror film in the past decade! Which is fitting, since this is one of the best horror films of the past decade!
Wingard walks a tightrope with “You’re Next”. He could’ve easily slipped in trying to balance the thrills, humor and violence. He glues them all together almost flawlessly! They all come together to convey a brilliant message, as well as simply sending chills up your spine. It’s a testament to how a good a filmmaker Wingard is to be able to pull this off.
Final Rating: A