You're Next (2011)
August 14, 2015 8:22 AM - Subscribe
When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of the victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.
This is yet another selection in FanFare's oldest movie club, the MeFi Horror Club. Want to pick the next movie for Horror Club? Drop me a MeMail and you can be up next. Guidelines here.
This is yet another selection in FanFare's oldest movie club, the MeFi Horror Club. Want to pick the next movie for Horror Club? Drop me a MeMail and you can be up next. Guidelines here.
I caught this film on cable almost by chance (I think it was when the premium movie channels were free for a month or something), and while it's not a movie I'd watch again, it was a fun ride, and a lot better than I'd expected.
At least now I know how to protect windows against burglars.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:23 AM on August 14, 2015
At least now I know how to protect windows against burglars.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:23 AM on August 14, 2015
Given my well-documented fondness for stories with a You Have Chosen the Absolute Wrong Person to Fuck With scenes, it was inevitable I would love this.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:41 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:41 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]
I like how smoothly this movie switches gears from a semi goofy Jason-like terror killer movie, to pretty fun action movie.
posted by nom de poop at 7:53 PM on August 14, 2015
posted by nom de poop at 7:53 PM on August 14, 2015
I was surprised how much I liked this movie. I've become cynical with modern horror movies. So many are comedies or done ironically with a wink and a nod. While I enjoy these type of movies, I don't want all of them to be like that.
The tension build well, the actions of the bad guys were inscrutable but the rational when it became known was going on. And the heroine was great! The reason she was able to fight back was well thought out and she wasn't a super hero, she was human and fought back in smart but reasonable ways and got hurt in the process.
This may be overly picky, but I felt the end dropped slightly into farce. The blender used to kill the brother was a bit into Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson territory, as was the police officer. I would have preferred her killing her fiance and driving off in a car in a stunned state.
But that's just me, otherwise it's one of the better movies I've watched recently, an unexpected treat.
posted by beowulf573 at 8:38 AM on August 15, 2015
The tension build well, the actions of the bad guys were inscrutable but the rational when it became known was going on. And the heroine was great! The reason she was able to fight back was well thought out and she wasn't a super hero, she was human and fought back in smart but reasonable ways and got hurt in the process.
This may be overly picky, but I felt the end dropped slightly into farce. The blender used to kill the brother was a bit into Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson territory, as was the police officer. I would have preferred her killing her fiance and driving off in a car in a stunned state.
But that's just me, otherwise it's one of the better movies I've watched recently, an unexpected treat.
posted by beowulf573 at 8:38 AM on August 15, 2015
Some of the Sam Raimi touches I liked cause they where just that, little nods of dark humor in between wrench bludgeonings
Interesting to compare this to The Strangers, which it resembles superficially (right down to a looping song) but The Strangers is dull and tepid while this just feels widily zippy and fresh - a lot of it is the characters, as we slowly learn the backstory and reasons for the invasion and are allowed to sort of get on the killers' side a bit since it's more then a little implied this family may deserve it. Some of it is just the sheer joy of watching a plan come together, thus the MURDEROUS VERSION OF HOME ALONE comment.
There's also a theory that successful horror/thrillers allow people to live out fears and come up with ways to survive the threat. Watch enough movies with screaming blondes running up stairs rather then out of the house and you can be assured that you'd never make that mistake (I mean, that's not how reality works but it feels good to think you're prepared) So I think a lot of the appeal of this movie is a subconscious "well now I know how to handle murderous invaders in my isolated mansion"
posted by The Whelk at 10:24 AM on August 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
Interesting to compare this to The Strangers, which it resembles superficially (right down to a looping song) but The Strangers is dull and tepid while this just feels widily zippy and fresh - a lot of it is the characters, as we slowly learn the backstory and reasons for the invasion and are allowed to sort of get on the killers' side a bit since it's more then a little implied this family may deserve it. Some of it is just the sheer joy of watching a plan come together, thus the MURDEROUS VERSION OF HOME ALONE comment.
There's also a theory that successful horror/thrillers allow people to live out fears and come up with ways to survive the threat. Watch enough movies with screaming blondes running up stairs rather then out of the house and you can be assured that you'd never make that mistake (I mean, that's not how reality works but it feels good to think you're prepared) So I think a lot of the appeal of this movie is a subconscious "well now I know how to handle murderous invaders in my isolated mansion"
posted by The Whelk at 10:24 AM on August 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
I am not a huge horror fan because I am a scaredy-baby 90% of the time, so getting my mood to line up with the opportunity to watch something is fairly rare. But thanks to MetaFilter, I've been meaning to watch this for a while nowand I only remembered it was on Netflix because of Horror Club, so thanks!
Finally watching it tonight, I enjoyed the hell out of it. About 25 minutes in, we paused for a bathroom break and during it, I almost came to this thread to say "God, I can't wait for these people to start dying." And if it had just been a "everyone except for Eric meets their gruesome end", I probably would have still liked it. But it became so much more than that and I couldn't have been happier.
The rich are often horrible, and it did invite the discussion "Wait - isn't being the marketing guy for a defense contractor actually worse than anything else you can do for a defense contractor?" But that house...
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:36 PM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Finally watching it tonight, I enjoyed the hell out of it. About 25 minutes in, we paused for a bathroom break and during it, I almost came to this thread to say "God, I can't wait for these people to start dying." And if it had just been a "everyone except for Eric meets their gruesome end", I probably would have still liked it. But it became so much more than that and I couldn't have been happier.
The rich are often horrible, and it did invite the discussion "Wait - isn't being the marketing guy for a defense contractor actually worse than anything else you can do for a defense contractor?" But that house...
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:36 PM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Eric = Erin above which is probably obvious, but I am not taking my chances with pissing her off, even if she's fictional.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:10 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:10 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
No one ever takes me seriously when I rave about this movie, and invariably when people watch it anyway they report back that they loved it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:10 PM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:10 PM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Produced by MeFi's own me.
posted by kcalder at 8:06 AM on August 17, 2015 [23 favorites]
posted by kcalder at 8:06 AM on August 17, 2015 [23 favorites]
FUCKIN' A, Keith Calder. Had no idea you were one of our'n.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:29 PM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:29 PM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ha! Hiya, Keith.
posted by cortex at 2:43 PM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by cortex at 2:43 PM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yup, I've been here for a while, although not as active as I used to be. Hi, Cortex
posted by kcalder at 8:47 AM on August 18, 2015
posted by kcalder at 8:47 AM on August 18, 2015
I also enjoyed the snot out of The Guest, Keith.
If someone here hasn't seen it, it's a fun take on the dangerous-stranger-stays-with-unsuspecting-family genre. It's notable also for starring Maika Monroe (emerging scream queen as seen it It Follows and Dan Stevens. Stevens, of course, played the aristocratic man of leisure Matthew on Downton Abbey, though you'd hardly recognize him in this, as he lost a bunch of weight and now looks like he is carved from a single block of wood.
Anyway, that's a good one, too. The ending isn't quite as perfect as You're Next, but it's got a ton of fun moments, including this one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on August 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
If someone here hasn't seen it, it's a fun take on the dangerous-stranger-stays-with-unsuspecting-family genre. It's notable also for starring Maika Monroe (emerging scream queen as seen it It Follows and Dan Stevens. Stevens, of course, played the aristocratic man of leisure Matthew on Downton Abbey, though you'd hardly recognize him in this, as he lost a bunch of weight and now looks like he is carved from a single block of wood.
Anyway, that's a good one, too. The ending isn't quite as perfect as You're Next, but it's got a ton of fun moments, including this one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on August 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
This was a super-fun movie! Home invasion movies often REALLY disturb me; couldn't make it through "The Purge," and "The Strangers" made me so tense and upset that I almost threw up, refuse to even try "Funny Games." But this one is great! I watched it with my cousin, and my brother and all three of us really liked it. I loved the one brother walking around with a knife literally sticking out of his back. The touches of humor save it from being too horrible.
And I was totally in love with the main female character. She was awesome.
posted by Aquifer at 12:37 PM on August 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
And I was totally in love with the main female character. She was awesome.
posted by Aquifer at 12:37 PM on August 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
Absolutely adore this film and was kicking myself that I skipped it in theaters because the marketing was so similar in style to THE PURGE that I avoided it just out of that. (Thankfully, Fantastic Fest goers had different buzz on it.) It manages to keep the pace at a perfect tempo, swelling and shrinking with the material and the emotions -- I'm not sure why pacing is so hard in horror, but I was just thankful this one got it right.
THE GUEST hits a lot of the same notes in a radically different way, too.
posted by Gucky at 6:06 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
THE GUEST hits a lot of the same notes in a radically different way, too.
posted by Gucky at 6:06 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I liked the ending, beowulf573. I felt like it's truer to the tragedy/noir sensibility to have the things and knowledge that saved her life potentially ruin that life.
Maybe I am overthinking it or not remembering well (haven't re watched since the theater) but I felt like it was an aspect of the horror of the situation and there was an implication that maybe the official reaction will be not so cut and dried and in her interest. She survives just to be blamed. Certainly a number of the instruments of death around the house have her mark on them.
posted by phearlez at 9:08 AM on September 1, 2015
Maybe I am overthinking it or not remembering well (haven't re watched since the theater) but I felt like it was an aspect of the horror of the situation and there was an implication that maybe the official reaction will be not so cut and dried and in her interest. She survives just to be blamed. Certainly a number of the instruments of death around the house have her mark on them.
posted by phearlez at 9:08 AM on September 1, 2015
Finally got around to watching this and I am now annoyed I waited so long. Great film, just a heap of fun.
Only improvement I could think of would have been for Erin's backstory explaining her skill at killing and maiming was simply "I'm from Cronulla". Nuff said.
posted by arha at 8:24 PM on May 14, 2016
Only improvement I could think of would have been for Erin's backstory explaining her skill at killing and maiming was simply "I'm from Cronulla". Nuff said.
posted by arha at 8:24 PM on May 14, 2016
Just watched this tonight. At first I wasn't sure I wasn't going to turn if off part way through (I don't like the whole "killing machine slasher" thing because it's always so senseless and gratuitous) but then of course there's a plot reveal and it all starts making sense and acquired a darkly comic edge. The jerky older brother walking around with an arrow sticking out of his back was hilarious. Erin was such a great character that she made the movie, though it seemed too over the top for her to have killed Crispin, and man, that cop took ages to get there.
posted by orange swan at 8:32 PM on September 27, 2016
posted by orange swan at 8:32 PM on September 27, 2016
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I WAS FLOORED. I love this movie. I love the way it builds tension. I love that it has a class warfare angle. I love that it takes place in one house. I hope that it's basically a MURDEROUS VERSION OF HOME ALONE. I love how nakedly in love with fake blood it is. I love that it takes a simple concept and runs with it.
And I love that damn song
posted by The Whelk at 8:50 AM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]