If You Want to Laugh and Be Scared, You're Next

I wasn’t a fan of 2012’s Cabin in the Woods, though the target audience was most definitely the same as Adam Wingard’s latest You’re Next, a slasher-comedy that is as smart as it is cheesy.  There’s a good chance both will be appreciated by people who love to laugh and be scared by self-aware filmmakers who know how to simultaneously manipulate those emotions.  Unfortunately, my own very specific subjectivity prevented me from reveling in Cabin’s chills and mirth.  I couldn’t buy into the outlandish, if not inventive and imaginative conceptual premise, which relied heavily on advanced technology to cartoonish degrees.  Nextis more old school with its storytelling, leaning on old tropes and whatever else is lying around the rural mansion providing the setting.

The movie doesn’t take itself seriously at all, but, in lieu of its lack of import, offers an efficient tale of 1) People trapped in a house located in some country home with no one around, 2) A killer(s) starts picking them off, and 3) The survivors have to figure out a way to live.  I was a bit skeptical and weary after the opening scene.  It has become common practice in the horror-comedy genre for the introduction to be a mini-movie, if you will, to wet its audience’s appetite.  Rather short, bewildering, and ultimately underwhelming, the script presses on and quickly gains its footing after we meet all of the characters who are family members and their partners coming together for a reunion of sorts (it doesn’t really matter; I mean, of the four grown siblings, none of them have kids).  But, really, for all intents and purposes, they’ve joined each other for a night of death; they just don’t know it yet. 

The characters are thinly drawn and the performances often laughable (for all the right reasons).  At one point, a woman in deep anguish, spilling tears, screams, “We’re all going to die.”  It’s not like this line hasn’t been uttered before in a very similar context, but Wingard managed to make this moment, like others (telling someone to go to the basement, even though it sounds like a horrible idea), feel fresh and new.  There are a few satisfying twists, as well as a bit of gore, but most commendable is the overall pacing--incredibly tempered with ample payoffs.  Wingard squeezes out delightful moments like a scene involving the characters shielding themselves with chairs as they pass a window for fear of being shot.  Like the animal mask(s) the killer(s) wear and their methods of dispatching their victims, it’s too much, but also the right amount of outrageousness.

It’s a bit lazy to compare this to The Conjuring, a recent haunted house box-office hit and quite admirable addition to the horror genre.  While both provide thrills and scares, they’re easy to commend for different reasons.  James Wan’s film was a more earnest and ambitious exercise that cultivated a mood and empathy.  It still had its more over-the-top moments, which were excusable, as a little laughter doesn’t hurt to cut the anxiety.  And when a director respects their audience, it’s very easy to be more forgiving for such seeming shortcomings. 

Next, on the other hand, reaches for new levels of ridiculousness with each subsequent scene, but part of the fun is watching just how far it can push itself with how little it has to work with other than its own moxie, which manifests itself in the movie’s heroine Erin (Sharni Vinson), an Australian raised on a survivalist compound (!), of all places.  The script tries to balance its slightly sexist moments (a camera objectifies a woman sleeking across a floor of broken glass in a manner not extended to any of the male characters, as well as another female character wearing nothing but panties and an open shirt), as any smart 21^st-horror movie does these days by giving us the underestimated female protagonist.  Erin’s antics and perseverance are often exhilarating to watch.  I don’t ever recall seeing two horror films I found so thoroughly entertaining in the same year. 

The cast also includes Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color), who helps contribute one of the film’s most hilarious moments; horror wunderkind Ti West; and a nuanced performance from Joe Swanberg.