You're Next (2011) - Wingard's terrific, genre-bending horror fan gift

♥♥♥♥♥

1 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Editing: Adam Wingard (lost to The Artist)

+ Best Horror Movie of the Year

A blurry, eerie poster for Adam Wingard's You're Next

An aging, affluent married couple's many children and their partners are invited to their remote mansion, - but someone has murdered the neighbors next door, and now the quarreling family are terrorized and violently attacked!

You're Next is the 6th film from great Tennessean filmmaker Adam Wingard (Autoerotic (2011)), written by Simon Barrett (Blair Witch (2016)).
You're Next has cool photography (by Andrew Droz Palermo (A Ghost Story (2017))) and effective editing (also by Wingard.) It is a smartly conceptualized slasher horror comedy with high pace, surprise twists and a through-going, neat unpredictability. It is made by people who obviously have fun with the genre, - and who also manage to make audiences have fun with their creation (and its brutal, more or less scary shenanigans.)
The point to You're Next may be that if you have a half-crappy family that's plagued by internal hatred, - you simply shouldn't bring them together.
SPOILER The film's Australian heroine Sharni Vinson (Bait (2012)) is super-cool in You're Next, (so is her creative - vicious - use of a blender!), and all of her co-stars seem totally game and capable here, too. You're Next is an extremely well-running, surprisingly solid and well-made movie. SPOILER The only thing in the plot that isn't really resolved is: why do the neighbors have to die? (As insurance against alarm, I guess.) The only questionable element, then, is the hunters writing 'you're next' in blood for their next victim, which is quite odd, if you try to make sense of it, but is also forgivable as the film's own frivolous invention, its quirk, its pizzazz.
The score, made by Mads Heldtberg (Teenage Cocktail (2016)), Jasper Lee (The Nobodies (2017)), Kyle McKinnon (Pop Skull (2007)) and Wingard, recalls John Carpenter scores, while plot elements share similarities with Night of the Living Dead (1968), Home Alone (1990) and more films.
You're Next clearly ranks among the year's best horror films and works both as a generational satire and a slasher-smelling blood bath.

Related post:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Wingard gives an interview about the film here

Cost: 1 mil. $
Box office: 26.8 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[You're Next premiered 10 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 94 minutes. The script came about due to Wingard's wish to make a home invasion movie, and was written with inspiration from Agatha Christie mysteries, screwball comedies and Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971). Shooting took place in Missouri for 4 weeks in March 2011, mostly in and around an antique home that had been standing empty for 12 years. Lionsgate bought the North-American and UK distribution rights for just 2 mil. $. The film opened and peaked at #6 to a 7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 18.4 mil. $ (68.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 1.8 mil. $ (6.7 %) and Spain with 1.2 mil. $ (4.5 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, very much opposite to this review and in-line with his poor appreciation and understanding of the horror genre in general. Wingard at the moment is announced to direct South-Korean movie remake I Saw the Devil as well as the coming, major tentpole movie Godzilla vs. Kong (2020). You're Next is certified fresh at 75 % with a 6.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of You're Next?

V/H/S (2012) - Energetic, periodically intensely creepy if flawed found footage horror anthology

♥♥♥

 

The inventively designed, sinister poster for Batt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Chad Villella, Ti West and Adam Wingard's V/H/S

Some very simpleminded guys get a job of breaking into a house to locate a VHS-tape. In the house they find a dead man, - and a lot of scary tapes. - They nevertheless try their best to complete the job ...

This accounts for the framing story of anthology horror V/H/S. Both that and the first story within the story, (all coming from tapes found in the house), are about really awfully dumb people, who yell brainlessly and break stuff. This combined with the nausea-inducing shaky camera technique that is the modus operandi for much of V/H/S makes for an inauspicious beginning that might lead some audiences to simply leave or switch off the film. It is a general problem for V/H/S that its stories are inhabited by too many foolhardy loudmouths.
But it also offers some well-functioning and extremely creepy periods, - SPOILER especially the motel break-in story (Second Honeymoon), the Skype woman (The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger) and the concluding, wild 1998 Halloween haunted-house story (10/31/98). The video aesthetic lends an uncomfortable realism to the film's best sequences, although many of the glitches and shakings are a bit much.
Still, V/H/S is an energetic and inventive anthology, - obviously made by true horror-lovers. It is made by a very long row of people, so take a deep breath: Conceptualized by Brad Miska (co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bloody-Disgusting.com); Tape 56 (frame story) written by Simon Barrett (Blair Witch (2016)), directed by Adam Wingard (Blair Witch); Amateur Night written by Nicholas Tecosky (SiREN (2016, based on characters created by) and co-writer-director David Bruckner (Southbound (2015, writer-director); Second Honeymoon written and directed by Ti West (In a Valley of Violence (2016)); Tuesday the 17th written and directed by Glenn McQuaid (Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear (2014), writer-director); The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger written by Barrett, directed by Joe Swanberg (Happy Christmas (2014) writer-director); 10/31/98 written and directed by Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Chad Villella (Devil's Due (2014), all)).

 

Here is an unrelated video of what is supposedly a real found-footage video found in Croatia of something very creepy ... Watch if you dare

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: In excess of 1.9 mil. $

= Unknown (likely a big flop)

[V/H/S premiered January 22 (Sundance) and runs 116 minutes. Filming took place in California. Magnolia Pictures purchased the distribution rights for around 1 mil. $ at Sundance, where it was reported that two movie patrons had to be seen to by paramedics, one of them collapsing after tumbling out during a screening of the film. Notoriously horror-bashing Roger Ebert gave the film a 1-star review. The film opened #52 in 16 theaters to a 36k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked in 19 theaters but didn't go above #52 and grossed just 100k $ (5.3 % of the total gross). If projected at a very modest 1 mil. $ budget, the film remains a big flop theatrically, though it has likely made money through home-video and VoD. Besides normal home-video releases, V/H/S has also been released on VHS in 2013. It has spawned two sequels, V/H/S/2 (2013) and V/H/S: Viral (2014) and the Amateur Night spin-off SiREN (2016). V/H/S is rotten at 55 % with a 5.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of V/H/S?