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"You're Next" is a simultaneously nihilistic and grossly incompetent horror homage. Imagine "Ten Little Indians" remade by horror buffs who don't have the patience to reproduce what they love most about horror films. Wingard, Barrett and company don't do anything with the slasher conventions they play around with.

Watching "You're Next" is like eating a tin-foil-wrapped tray of leftovers. It's a hamburger, so you shouldn't expect steak. But the contents of your tray are: a half-eaten, microwave-nuked cheeseburger; leaves of wilting, translucent lettuce; slices of yellowing, sickly tomato; and floppy, soggy french fries. Consuming this product is not entirely unpleasant since it's almost impossible to screw up such a short order. But that doesn't change the sad fact that "You're Next" is essentially a flavorless leftover. It looks like what you ordered, but it's only satisfying if you settle for much less.

Because "You're Next" is an assembly-line product made on a small production line, the film has a situation instead of a plot, and types instead of characters. All you need to know is this: A family of estranged siblings re-unite for dinner with their parents. They are subsequently hunted down by masked killers before they can develop personalities, though they all have obvious tics meant to signal personality. For example, Felix ( Nicholas Tucci ) is shy because he doesn't say anything. His girlfriend Zee ( Wendy Glenn ) is jaded because she rolls her eyes and smokes. And Drake ( Joe Swanberg ) is an opinionated asshole because he smirks a lot and is generally loud. So we root for Erin ( Sharni Vinson ), an Australian college student, because she's the only one who can handle herself in a crisis. Better still, Erin is really good at killing people with improvised weapons. Like, brutally. As in, once she starts putting the hurt on an assailant, she doesn't stop until blood rockets out of freshly created orifices. Look out Sarah Connor, here comes Erin!

Erin's a cold-blooded badass because she grew up around survivalists. This isn't really a spoiler because that information doesn't tell you anything about the character. All it tells you is that Erin can beat people up real good because her family are the most extreme doomsday preppers, the kind who anticipate the end of the world by learning how to survive in any hostile environment.

Knowing that Erin was raised as a survivalist doesn't provide a foundation towards understanding her actions. Instead, it serves as a pretext for her contextless behavior. All we need to know is that Erin's pretty good at being brutal. The scene where Erin tells us about her survivalist past is bereft of any memorable details. This is not an explanation, it's an excuse. It's the filmmakers's way of excusing their love of ghoulishly sadistic violence.

"You're Next" is tonally all over the map. It's as if Wingard and Barrett had a checklist of stuff they wanted to see in their film, and didn't know how to work around that list. Some kill scenes are serious and icky (look before you run!), while some are gross and funny (headshot!). The difference between these two kinds of violence isn't substantial. The film's macabre sense of humor is especially poorly timed. One character pouts "you never want to do anything interesting" when their partner refuses to have sex on top of a corpse. That sequence is sandwiched between scenes where characters maim each other with gusto, especially each other's throats.

The film is also visually confusing. Most of the film's action is covered, and not composed. You can't tell if characters are geographically close to each other until they actually bump into each other, thanks to Wingard's serial abuse of jiggly, close-up-heavy hand-held camerawork. And the film's plotting is equally choppy. It's like you're channel-surfing, and any inter-related scenes are only coincidentally united by a coherent narrative. Characters disappear and re-appear on a whim, and, eventually watching killers pop out of unusual places gets pretty tedious. Even if you're really in the mood for scraps, "You're Next" isn't going to tide you over.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film Credits

You're Next (2011)

Sharni Vinson as Erin

Ti West as Tariq

Barbara Crampton as Aubrey

Amy Seimetz as Aimee

Wendy Glenn as Zee

Joe Swanberg as Drake

AJ Bowen as Crispian

Kate Lyn Sheil as Talia

Rob Moran as Paul Davison

Nicholas Tucci as Felix

• Adam Wingard
• Simon Barrett

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You're Next Reviews

Manages to not only be a genuine tribute to the strengths of the home-invasion subgenre, but also finds ways to circumvent those tropes, delivering something that's a delight from start to finish, while also offering up genuine tension.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 20, 2023

The material is a welcomed change from the dull, commercial-minded yarns such material would normally produce.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 25, 2022

It's a sly thriller that seems self-aware of its intent, making the laughs land, the synthy-score pop, and the thrills and kills squeamishly entertaining.

Full Review | Nov 12, 2021

Laughs are only a fraction of the responses you'll hear if you see this with an audience, which I suggest you do. Applause, gasps, cheers, whatever sound people make when they are grossed out; not a scene goes by without a hearty reaction from the crowd.

Full Review | Feb 24, 2021

Quite a few surprises are also gratifyingly lined up for audiences, taking care not to overdo the twists while still allowing several to alarm the unsuspecting.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 4, 2020

The film checks all the requisite boxes and moves in a few new directions to boot.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 7, 2020

Twisted, gory, scary, tense, and shockingly funny.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 8, 2020

You're Next is anchored by a singularly compelling performance by its lead actress, leading to a most visceral and entertaining experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 17, 2020

I wanna be next in line to see You're Next again!!! It's bloody wonderful!

Full Review | Nov 27, 2019

As You're Next changes from grimly scary to an over-the-top gore fest, Wingard should have gone back and consulted those '70s films where not everything has to be explained.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.8/5 | Nov 20, 2019

The mix of gore, humor and familiarity takes the film from being a passable "B" movie to a successful and well-executed homage that may change the way we view the genre.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2019

While the absence of misogynist undertones makes this an extremely pleasurable horror crowd pleaser, the predilection for cheap laughs lightens the thrills to such an extent that it flies past black comedy into parody during key sequences.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 27, 2019

You're Next is an absolute beast of a horror picture that's so fierce, barbaric, and terrifying that the guy sitting next to me in the theater started to convulse from fright and leaped over his chair and bolted out of the theater.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 11, 2019

You're Next is nice little ride, and I appreciate that it had a lot of awesome splatteriffic moments.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2019

You're Next operates as a genre palette cleanser, with its acerbic humour bringing a fresh, vital edge to the most worn slasher tropes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 2, 2019

Vinson's cunning turn as Erin could potentially become iconic as one of the strongest female action heroes in a generation, which is fitting since gems as smart and satisfying as "You're Next" come around just as rarely.

Full Review | Jan 8, 2019

Saturated with snappy dialogue, twisty plotting and wicked-minded wit, the sacrificial lambs in You're Next that display murderous masked menaces and their pristine prey are a welcomed relief to the corrosive crop of dice-and-slice cinema

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 17, 2018

Adam Wingard's nasty, scrupulously violent home-invasion film is like if the killers from The Strangers went people-hunting after a screening of Cannibal Holocaust.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2018

You're Next is just plain fun. Once it gets rolling, it doesn't let up and will keep you engaged until the ludicrous conclusion.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 1, 2018

Effective second-tier spooker, perfect for those after a quick jolt.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 24, 2018

You're Next (2011)

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Movie Review

They Probably Should Have Skipped This Dinner Party

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

• Aug. 22, 2013

Injecting the home-invasion thriller with fresh DNA, Adam Wingard’s “You’re Next” strays just enough from formula to tweak our jaded appetites. That it does so without spraying the gore to geyserlike excess says a great deal about Mr. Wingard’s sensibility. Never one to linger ghoulishly over violence — or to rely on bloodletting to plug a weak script — he prefers to strike and move on.

After a swift, shocking prologue, the movie invites us to the isolated country estate of a wealthy couple (Rob Moran and Barbara Crampton) where an awkward family reunion is under way. As old rivalries and resentments threaten to derail dinner, the 10 adults are interrupted by uninvited visitors — wearing animal masks, toting crossbows and intent on killing anything that moves.

The situation is all too familiar, but the pleasure lies in Andrew Droz Palermo’s unusually tactile photography — we can almost feel the viscosity of a stream of orange juice — and a table-turning plot by Simon Barrett that checks the genre boxes while still surprising us. The humor is subdued and sneaky (a documentary filmmaker, played by the horror director Ti West , is the first to be offed), and the balance of wipeouts and wisecracks is pleasingly fluid. And if Mr. Wingard’s moviemaking buddies (like Joe Swanberg and Larry Fessenden) are more talented behind the camera than in front of it, the rest of the cast — especially the hardworking Sharni Vinson as an Australian guest with a secret past — easily makes up the difference.

As a director, Mr. Wingard has an oblique, under-the-radar style that lingers, sometimes obsessively, on details. (This was most pronounced in his 2011 feature “A Horrible Way to Die.” ) His real talent, however, may lie in editing: choreographing more than a dozen crashing-around characters isn’t for sissies. On the evidence of this film, having a large family isn’t so hot either.

“You’re Next” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Brains are puréed, skulls are tenderized, and necks are garroted.

YOU'RE NEXT Review

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[ This is a re-post of my review from the Toronto International Film Festival.  You're Next opens tomorrow. ]

Adam Wingard 's You're Next is the home invasion horror sub-genre played to near-perfection. Through a terrific blend of setting, characters, pacing, and creative kills, Wingard delivers a horror film that even non-horror fans can enjoy. The film falters slightly when it offers more information than necessary, but you'll suspend your disbelief for the fun, thrills, and excitement you'll get in return.

Crispian Davison ( A.J. Bowen ) has brought his girlfriend Erin ( Sharni Vinson ) to meet his family at their secluded country house for his parents' 30th wedding anniversary. Along with Crispian's father Paul ( Rob Moran ) and mother Aubrey ( Barbara Crampton ), the guest list includes his brothers Drake ( Joe Swanberg ) and Felix ( Nicholas Tucci ), his sister Aimee ( Amy Seimetz ) and their significant others Kelly ( Margaret Laney ), Zee ( Wendy Glenn ), and Tariq ( Ti West ), respectively.  Wingard efficiently sets up the relationships and establishes that this isn't a group of people we want to see dead, but a regular family who don't deserve the violence that's about to befall them. After a tense first act, the family comes under siege by a group of masked, unknown attackers whose motives may not extend beyond mindless killing. Erin springs into action and tries to protect the family from the killers picking them off one-by-one.

Wingard uses the country house perfectly as his setting. It's in the middle of nowhere, it's nighttime, and the victims don't know how many psychos are inside and outside the house. But the house offers its own dangers with narrow corridors, and too many large, windowed roomed where the threat could come from almost any direction. The family would be lost without Erin and that's where Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett make their first smart play. Erin isn't the horror-staple "Survivor Girl" who gets lucky. She's the survivalist girl and her presence gives the audience someone to root for rather than someone who occasionally kicks a killer and scampers away to hide. When You're Next gets you cheering, it's for Erin.

But the film does almost everything in its power to take the strategic advantage away from her and does a masterful job of keeping the tension alive. The aforementioned design of the house plays a large part but Wingard knows how to shoot the location for maximum effect and then he throws on a brilliant sound design. The score forgoes the shrieks of violins in favor of gut-punching bass, and Wingard milks every creak, click, and crack for they're worth. You're Next demands to be seen in a place where you have a sound system that can shake your seat and envelope you in the terror the characters feel.

The script does have to take a few unfortunate shortcuts to make the story work. You're Next works wonders when it keeps the audience in the dark and our only solace is that the attackers are flesh-and-blood humans.  Nevertheless, we don't know their motives, their masks are creepy as hell, and for half the film we don't even know how many there are. However, Wingard and Barrett eventually make concessions that lessen the tension and offer an explanation that would knock you out of the movie if it hadn't already drawn you in so deeply. The ending is also predictable but Wingard plays it so well that you won't mind.

Almost everything in You're Next goes off with a hitch. It's the perfect balance of horror and action with a little bit of comedy thrown in for good measure. Wingard and Barrett haven't re-written the genre but they've added enough minor tweaks to keep the story feeling fresh. But the film's greatest strength is in how how it blends jump scares, creepiness, dark comedy, and gore to create a damn fine horror flick that will have you locking your doors and fearing your windows.

• Entertainment

You're Next Review

The home invasion movie reinvented.

A director and writer at the top of their respective games give the home invasion movie a hugely enjoyable makeover.

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