You're Next (2013)

If you think You're Next is just another run-of-the-mill, home invasion thriller, then you'll be selling the film short and missing out on a nice, late-summer surprise.  I was actually going to skip this one, but after hearing some of the buzz, I decided to give it a shot.  I'm glad I did.

After a prologue where a really mismatched couple gets murdered, a wealthy, retired couple (Rob Moran and Barbara Crampton) return to their large vacation home for a family reunion.  First to arrive is their son Crispian (AJ Bowen) and his girlfriend, Erin (Sharni Vinson).  The remainder of the siblings and their significant others arrive later and eventually they sit down for dinner.

During dinner, Tariq (Ti West) notices something outside and is shot in the the head with an arrow.  The family escapes to a safer room as an unknown number of attackers continue to terrorize them.  More are injured or killed while they try to figure out how to survive and get help.  The randomness and brutality of it is a little shocking, even for horror veterans.  It's tough to watch a normal family just trying to enjoy dinner and then all hell breaks loose.  Why is this happening?  Do they somehow deserve this?

Where You're Next takes a turn for the awesome is when Erin decides she isn't just going to sit there and do nothing as they wait for help.  As if the spawn of Liam Neeson, she reveals a particular set of survival skills, and turns the tables on the attackers.  If you've ever gotten frustrated wondering why people trapped inside their house don't behave differently or use their knowledge of the home as an asset, then I think you' really love how You're Next plays out.  Recently, I was very critical of The Purge for exactly this reason.

It's very satisfying to see how You're Next flips the script, and this makes it easy to forgive many of the film's flaws.  While just 94 minutes, it still somehow takes a little too long to get going, especially when it's obvious that the murders from the prologue happen in the home next door, so you know this is coming.  I don't want to spoil too much, but some of the twists are either pretty apparent from the beginning, or you'll figure out without much effort.  The acting is also a little rough to watch.  It's usually never the strength in horror, but it really stands out here as a weakness.  The exception to this is Sharni Vinson as Erin, who establishes herself as quite the badass.  I'd even go out there can call it Ripley-esque.  Also, I have to say that Barbara Crampton still sexy as hell.  I know that has nothing to do with the acting, but I just had to put it out there.

Another thing I liked about You're Next is while gory in parts, they don't go overboard with it.  There are plenty of times where they could have, but they struck a good balance of showing you just enough, and then letting the sound effects and your imagination do the rest.  I was also surprised at how funny it was, not just from the story elements, but there's some dialog that gave me a laugh.  The humor is a good contrast to the number of jump scares.

Director Adam Wingard, along with writer Simon Barrett, are part of the team that's been involved with the V/H/S series, along with Ti West and Joe Swanberg (who have roles in You're Next).  It's clear these guys really love the genre, and I appreciate how they are willing to experiment and take risks.  I haven't always loved everything they've done so far, but at least they're making the effort.

You're Next is a genre-bending horror/thriller that has a nice mix of violence and dark humor, and is much more fun that you'd expect.  It's also a bit of wish fulfillment if you've ever been irritated with character behavior in similar films.  That alone made it worth watching, and as a result has a much broader appeal.  I definitely recommend checking it out, and it's worth a matinee.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

V/H/S/2 (2013)

I was somewhat critical of last year's V/H/S.  While I appreciated the return of "Anthology Horror", I felt that the stories were too much of a mixed bag, featuring too many unlikeable characters.  Horror works better when you aren't actively rooting for the people on screen to get what's coming to them.

V/H/S/2 doesn't completely address all of my issues with the first, but it is definitely a step up across the board this time around.  The overall format is the same, you have a 'framing story' that contains the main arc, with several short stories shown throughout.

The framing story, "Tape 49" (written and directed by Simon Barrett), is already an improvement over the framing story from first film.  This time, we follow two private investigators hired to find a missing student (as opposed to following a bunch of punks vandalizing and committing sexual assault).  They break into his home and find a stack of TVs with various VHS tapes.  As Larry (Lawrence Michael Levine) searches the rest of the house, Ayesha (Kelsy Abbott) starts watching the tapes hoping they may have more clues.  Also left behind is a laptop with a video recorded by the missing student saying the tapes need to be watched in the correct order in order to have an effect.

The first tape, "Clinical Trials" (written and directed by Adam Wingard) is about a man (also played by Wingard) that gets an experimental eye transplant after an accident cost him his sight.  The eye also has a recording device implanted in it, so they can track him for the experiment.  It's not long after he arrives home before he starts seeing things.  I thought this was the most effective story as far as actual scares go.  It's just a man alone in his home, and that generally gets to me when watching alone with the lights off.  Plus, this story has boobs (provided by Hannah Hughes), so bonus.

The second tape, "A Ride in the Park", features a mountain biker with a helmet-mounted cam getting in a quick ride before meeting with his fiance.  He's not on the trail before too long before he's stopped by a hysterical woman covered in blood.  She's screaming about her boyfriend, and then the rider notices a pack of zombies approaching.  Yes, zombies!  Written by Jamie Nash and Eduardo Sánchez and directed by Gregg Hale and Sánchez, it seems like a bit of overkill considering this is basically a short zombie film shot.  It's suitably gory and fun, but I don't find zombie stories all that scary these days.  At least they are traditional, slow moving zombies.  The highlight of "Ride" is it's perspective, which is all I'll say about it (no spoilers).

The third tape, "Safe Haven" (written and directed by Gareth Evans and Timo Tjahjanto), features a film crew interview the leader of a cult.  They travel to his compound to conduct further interviews.  As you may guess, it's not long before shit hits the fan and all hell breaks loose.  I'd say this one was the creepiest of the stories for a few reasons, which I won't go into to keep it spoiler-free.  It's also the most involved as far as character details and overall scope of the story.  You could easily see this one being expanded into a full length film.  This is one also has some good moments of gore.

The final tape, "Alien Abduction Slumber Party" (written and directed by Jason Eisener), pretty much says it all.  A boy and his friends are having a slumber party while their parents are out of town, playing various practical jokes on his older sister and her friends.  When they plan to retaliate, aliens show up and attempt to abduct the group.  It's pretty straightforward, but this story probably bugged the most with how it was filmed.  There were lots of strobe effects and too much shaky handheld camera stuff.  The aliens would randomly appear and disappear at various distances for no real reason.  I think I would have enjoyed this one a little more if it was filmed differently.  I've said this before, but why are aliens always naked when they attempt to abduct humans?  I'm starting to believe this is all done by drunk aliens that think it would be funny to strip naked and then abduct and probe us.  They're just messing with us like jocks picking on nerds.

We come back to the conclusion of the framing story.  Again, there are some creepy elements, but I was a little irritated with some of the character decisions at this point.  Just typical horror stuff where you can't help but wonder why the guy doesn't call the police or get out of the house.  Instead he hangs around and watches more tapes.

I still want to know who's putting these digital formats back onto VHS.  Some demonic hipster who insists that the curse from the VHS tapes have more warmth to them?  Outside of that point, many of the technical aspects of the first film were handled more elegantly this time, where it makes sense that people would be filming or have hidden or mounted cameras for a reason.  However, with all of the handheld camera work, you have a lot of really bad shaky-camera moments.  It made a few of the stories hard to follow or watch at times.

Overall, I felt the quality of the stories was better than the first V/H/S, and they weren't quite so random.  There's more humor and personality, and I found myself actually liking many of these characters and wanting to see more of them.  Each story was much tighter and the overall runtime has been cut down, which was another improvement.  At over two hours, I really thought the first started to drag as it went on, where with V/H/S/2 the pacing is brisk.  It's kind of ironic as many of the short stories in V/H/S/2 could be fleshed out into full length films, but I'm glad they stuck with the short format.

V/H/S/2 is a great horror film to watch with a group of friends, as there's a little something for everyone.  Both creepy and gory, it also manages to be scary and fun.  It's the rare example of a sequel being a definite improvement over it's predecessor.  Fans of horror should definitely check it out.  It's likely going to be the best horror of 2013.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars