You’re Next (2011)

You’re Next is a 2011 slasher by Adam Wingard about masked killers who attack a family reunion and the one guest who fights back.

At a Glance

Overview

Erin travels with her boyfriend Crispian to his family’s vacation home in rural Missouri for a family dinner. Paul and Aubrey Davison have gathered all four of their adult children and their partners, and dinner quickly turns into a sniping match between brothers. Then a crossbow bolt flies through the window and kills one of the guests. Outside are killers in animal masks, a lamb, a fox and a tiger, and phone signals have been jammed. Each time they strike, they leave the words “you’re next” written in blood.

The film’s twist is that the killers have badly misjudged one person in the house. While the family panics, Erin calmly starts barricading doors, setting traps and fighting back with whatever tools she can find. She explains that she grew up on a survivalist compound. From there You’re Next becomes as much a black comedy as a horror film, mixing gory deaths with dry laughs and a family whose secrets are worse than the masks outside. Its knowing play with slasher rules follows the path of Scream, and its splatter and grim humor recall Evil Dead.

Production

Wingard told Simon Barrett he wanted to make a home-invasion movie, because those were the only films that still truly frightened him. Barrett’s script mixed influences from Agatha Christie mysteries, screwball comedies and chamber mysteries, and he later said Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood was probably in the back of his mind. Some of the dinner arguments were improvised from the filmmakers’ own family experiences. The film was shot in 2011 over four weeks at a mansion in Columbia, Missouri, mostly in night shoots running from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Wingard also edited the film, and many of the cast were fellow independent filmmakers: Ti West, Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Larry Fessenden and Barrett himself all appear. Horror veteran Barbara Crampton plays the mother, Aubrey.

Cast

• Sharni Vinson as Erin

• A. J. Bowen as Crispian Davison

• Nicholas Tucci as Felix Davison

• Wendy Glenn as Zee

• Joe Swanberg as Drake Davison

• Amy Seimetz as Aimee Davison

• Barbara Crampton as Aubrey Davison

• Rob Moran as Paul Davison

• Ti West as Tariq

• Simon Barrett as Tiger Mask

• Larry Fessenden as Erik Harson

Reception

You’re Next premiered in the Midnight Madness section at TIFF in 2011, and four days later Lionsgate bought the US, British and Canadian rights for $2 million. The release was then held for two years, finally reaching US theaters on August 23, 2013. It opened with about $7 million and grossed about $26.9 million worldwide on a budget of about $1 million. Rotten Tomatoes lists 79 percent approval from 160 reviews, praising its “mix of brutal gore and pitch black humor,” and Metacritic’s score is 66 out of 100. Vanity Fair called it “one of the more entertaining horror pictures of the last 10 years,” and Entertainment Weekly described it as “Ordinary People meets Scream.” It has since gained a cult following.

Spoiler: The Ending

Paul finds sleeping bags and food in a closet, proof the killers have been hiding in the house for some time, and Fox cuts his throat. The truth comes out: Felix and his girlfriend Zee hired the killers so they could inherit the family fortune. Felix kills his brother Drake. Erin kills Lamb, sets an axe trap above the front door, and kills Fox, then Felix with a blender and Zee with a knife. When Felix’s phone rings, Erin answers silently, and Crispian reveals that he was part of the plot too. When he returns, he tries to bribe her into silence, and she kills him. A police officer arrives, sees her kill Crispian and shoots her in the shoulder. Ignoring her warnings, he walks through the front door and is killed by the axe trap.

Trivia and Facts

• The masked killers wear lamb, fox and tiger masks.

• Screenwriter Simon Barrett plays the Tiger Mask killer.

• Directors Ti West and Joe Swanberg have acting roles.

• Filming took place over four weeks of night shoots in Columbia, Missouri.

• It won the Syfy prize at the Gérardmer fantastic film festival in 2013.

• It sat for nearly two years between its festival premiere and US release.