Horror films are the cheapest yet riskiest film a studio can invest in. While most of the underperforming horror films are usually bland and mediocre at best, every once in a while, you come across a film that fails in so many ways that you’re not sure where to begin.
Review Score: 1/5
The premise of “You’re Next” is as follows. A group of unknown actors have a family reunion in the modern day equivalent of a cabin in the woods, only to have a group of animal-mask-wearing psychopaths proceed to systematically kill them off while the characters bumble around following even the most out-dated clichés possible.
The first problem with the film is that there is little to no character development.
We’re just introduced to what looks like a completely dysfunctional family and are suddenly expected to care about them when the killing starts even though we’re given no reason to.
While clichés are prevalent in horror films, this film somehow finds a way to use so many clichés within the first few minutes that it stops being even laughably bad and instead feels like there was no sense of originality.
As the film progresses, we’re then bombarded with plot twists and revelations that are supposed to be surprising, but aren’t given how little we know about the characters.
All the various twists just accomplish the task of making the characters unlikable and unrelatable.
The film then devolves into a laughable excuse for a send up to the ‘80’s slasher films, complete with cheesy synthesizer music and the repeated use of the one professionally produced song they got the licensing for.
Couple that with the fact that film also devolves into a showcase of gore effects that even the ‘80s would be ashamed of, and the audience’s suspension of disbelief is not so much broken, but rather stuffed into a sack, repeatedly hit against the wall, poured out, smashed with a hammer, with the powdery contents remaining being sliced into lines and then snorted by the film’s producers.
After all of that, the film then has the gall to try to treat itself as a satire and send-up to classic horror films, expecting the viewer to forget that it was trying to be taken seriously at the start of the film.
Overall, this film feels very amateurish in terms of writing, pacing, and effects, as we’re given a hastily delivered, yet convoluted plot with no sense of foreshadowing or character development that isn’t even sure what kind of film it’s supposed to be.
It doesn’t even boast value as a laughably bad movie, as even the kills and gore are mediocre at best.
This film isn’t worth renting on Netflix or even from a public library. It comes across as a badly produced independent film that should have died off in the festival circuit as opposed to being released theatrically. On my personal scale, I give “You’re Next” a 1/5. Do. Not. See. This. Movie.
