My original plan was to write an interesting and informative review about the latest ‘horror’ film to be released in UK cinemas, You’re Next, which was released on Wednesday, August 28th. Over the course the past two days, while I’ve been thinking about what to say in the review, I found myself becoming progressively more annoyed at the disappointing standard of ‘horror’ found within this release and, here you have it, the review is now a ranty, blog post.
Now I’ve read an awful lot of reviews for this film, as has my friend who I went to watch it with, and we were both fairly confident that we were in for some horror delights. I don’t know whether we wandered into the wrong cinema screen, but we definitely didn’t get anything close to delight in this film…
The premise of the production is that a large family get together at their country home to celebrate the wedding anniversary of their parents; all the kids flock home and bring with them their new partners to shamefully boast about in between bickering with each other. Shortly after this begins, these people in plastic animal masks start killing them only to find that they are no match for Erin (Sharni Vinson), the protagonist of this film, who quickly begins to beat them at their own game.
There you go, that’s the film.
Please, don’t think I’m downplaying it, because I’m actually not - bar revealing the only exciting twist (that my friend and I had guessed at before it was actually revealed) there is nothing that I have missed out in that synopsis.
It’s a basic home invasion film, which the cinema hasn’t exactly been short of it in recent months anyway, that is being praised by nearly everyone who sees it and I just can’t fathom why. I’ll give the scriptwriters a bonus point for managing to incorporate the odd bit of humour into the production that is strategically positioned in between the dramatised bloody splatters, of which there are plenty, but other than that there is nothing ground-breaking about this film. Even the basic storyline of it seems recycled to me, which is probably why it was so easy to guess where this was all going a good half an hour before it happened.
I’ll give another bonus point to Sharni Vinson, because she is a hell of a character in this! Such a good character, in fact, that I’d go as far to say her performance is wasted in this feature. Her insane survival skills are no match for the stupidity of everyone else in the film, including the supposedly expert killers who just seem to be mindless imbeciles that someone gave a bag of weapons to.
Overall, it’s just weak. Even the death scenes aren’t anything worth raving about! Some of the them, okay, I’ll give a point to for creativity, but generally speaking they’re all so overdone to such an extent that they actually become comedic, which would be fine if this film was being marketed as a black comedy (is it? I haven’t read anything along those lines) but as far as horror goes, all characters and their demises are just too cardboard for you to believe that there’s anything bad happening here and truthfully, when you’re watching someone have their throat cut, you should feel uncomfortable, not bored.
On a positive note, I was relieved/impressed at the correct use of an apostrophe in the title, so they can have a point for that too.
Many people out there are loving this film, so if you feel inclined to ignore my sugar-coated words of warning (believe me, this could have been a lot harsher) then please, indulge yourselves. I didn’t like it, nor did my friend, or the handful of other people who actually bothered to turn up to watch the first showing of this film on Wednesday night (perhaps the people around my area just knew it wouldn’t be worth the money that a cinema ticket costs?). To sum up, it’s a below par horror film that is littered with graphic violence in an attempt to compensate for the general lack of a storyline, and you are much better off trying to catch a viewing of The Conjuring (or failing that, anything else that’s playing in your cinema at the minute!) than you are viewing this.
C x
Now I’ve read an awful lot of reviews for this film, as has my friend who I went to watch it with, and we were both fairly confident that we were in for some horror delights. I don’t know whether we wandered into the wrong cinema screen, but we definitely didn’t get anything close to delight in this film…
The premise of the production is that a large family get together at their country home to celebrate the wedding anniversary of their parents; all the kids flock home and bring with them their new partners to shamefully boast about in between bickering with each other. Shortly after this begins, these people in plastic animal masks start killing them only to find that they are no match for Erin (Sharni Vinson), the protagonist of this film, who quickly begins to beat them at their own game.
There you go, that’s the film.
Please, don’t think I’m downplaying it, because I’m actually not - bar revealing the only exciting twist (that my friend and I had guessed at before it was actually revealed) there is nothing that I have missed out in that synopsis.
It’s a basic home invasion film, which the cinema hasn’t exactly been short of it in recent months anyway, that is being praised by nearly everyone who sees it and I just can’t fathom why. I’ll give the scriptwriters a bonus point for managing to incorporate the odd bit of humour into the production that is strategically positioned in between the dramatised bloody splatters, of which there are plenty, but other than that there is nothing ground-breaking about this film. Even the basic storyline of it seems recycled to me, which is probably why it was so easy to guess where this was all going a good half an hour before it happened.
I’ll give another bonus point to Sharni Vinson, because she is a hell of a character in this! Such a good character, in fact, that I’d go as far to say her performance is wasted in this feature. Her insane survival skills are no match for the stupidity of everyone else in the film, including the supposedly expert killers who just seem to be mindless imbeciles that someone gave a bag of weapons to.
Overall, it’s just weak. Even the death scenes aren’t anything worth raving about! Some of the them, okay, I’ll give a point to for creativity, but generally speaking they’re all so overdone to such an extent that they actually become comedic, which would be fine if this film was being marketed as a black comedy (is it? I haven’t read anything along those lines) but as far as horror goes, all characters and their demises are just too cardboard for you to believe that there’s anything bad happening here and truthfully, when you’re watching someone have their throat cut, you should feel uncomfortable, not bored.
On a positive note, I was relieved/impressed at the correct use of an apostrophe in the title, so they can have a point for that too.
Many people out there are loving this film, so if you feel inclined to ignore my sugar-coated words of warning (believe me, this could have been a lot harsher) then please, indulge yourselves. I didn’t like it, nor did my friend, or the handful of other people who actually bothered to turn up to watch the first showing of this film on Wednesday night (perhaps the people around my area just knew it wouldn’t be worth the money that a cinema ticket costs?). To sum up, it’s a below par horror film that is littered with graphic violence in an attempt to compensate for the general lack of a storyline, and you are much better off trying to catch a viewing of The Conjuring (or failing that, anything else that’s playing in your cinema at the minute!) than you are viewing this.
C x
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