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Horror Hall of Fame
YOU'RE
NEXT
— 2011 —
I have actually been looking forward to finally watch this film, mainly because I see the director, Adam Wingard, as a great newcomer to the horror genre and cinema in general, and I truly think he has potential to become a memorable moviemaker of this time. On one occasion, I watched the first 25 minutes or more of it, but it didn't entirely catch my attention and I thought I had better give it another go some time, when I felt more up for it. It would be a shame if my mood was what would end up ruining my experience with the film. Now, when it received a nomination in the Horror HoF there's no excuses or ways around it, and I’m happy to finally be able to see it. Unfortunately, I can't really say I left this film feeling satisfied in any way...
First off, it actually seems like it wasn’t me who was in the wrong mood back when I turned this off half an hour into the film. Right from the start it does a lazy job at getting our attention. The build up is quite poorly done and the characters introduced come across as totally uninteresting. First off we get the obligatory opening horror kill sequence, and there is really nothing new here. Then we slowly and monotony get introduced to the various characters, which pretty much all lack any kind of depth or development. But since this is a horror film I can forgive this area though, and perhaps they will change over time as the movie progresses…
When things start to go down, I instantly became annoyed with the characters, which just confirmed my observation even further. They were all simply yelling and screaming for an unbroken period of 10 minutes or so, and not in a frightened and well-acted kind of way, but just plain annoying screams and you couldn't separate one from the other. Obviously, there was the girl who ends up becoming the leading character, who was pretty much the only one with a sense of variation from the others. Not only were the characters annoying and one-sided, they acted completely stupid in a way you would never do and that pissed me off, especially combined with the many clichés. I hate it when suspense or terror is created purely out of the fact that the characters must be brainless to follow through with a plot point...
You're Next is filled with clichés as well, which didn't truly annoy me at first, since I know the director has a soft spot for doing homages to different genres and eras of cinema. But this just wasn't done in a respectful or inventive manner, or even lifted the movie to a higher level of originality or enjoyment. It just became utterly predictable, and you could simply just sit there and point out pretty much everything that would happen next (I really didn't know the title of the film referred to the many clichés of the horror genre... who would have thought?)
The humour in the film threw me off several times as well. In my book it is hard to balance humour and horror unless you go all the way to one side (like Shaun of the Dead or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil). For me it didn’t work at all, because I had no idea when to laugh and when not to. It felt like it tried to hard to be funny and it just came across as unprofessional and poorly directed instead.
When it comes to the soundtrack, it was a bit all over the place. Towards the end it slowly turned into this 80s synthetic sounding ballad, which reminded me of his recent film The Guest which I really enjoyed. I guess it was okay. At least better than the aggressive and repetitive soundtrack coming before it, which wasn't good in my opinion. The visuals were fine, the acting acceptable, but overall I had a hard time enjoying this because of all the stupidity, mistakes and mishaps to be found, which ended up completely over-shining the greater parts of the film.
YOU'RE
NEXT
— 2011 —
I have actually been looking forward to finally watch this film, mainly because I see the director, Adam Wingard, as a great newcomer to the horror genre and cinema in general, and I truly think he has potential to become a memorable moviemaker of this time. On one occasion, I watched the first 25 minutes or more of it, but it didn't entirely catch my attention and I thought I had better give it another go some time, when I felt more up for it. It would be a shame if my mood was what would end up ruining my experience with the film. Now, when it received a nomination in the Horror HoF there's no excuses or ways around it, and I’m happy to finally be able to see it. Unfortunately, I can't really say I left this film feeling satisfied in any way...
First off, it actually seems like it wasn’t me who was in the wrong mood back when I turned this off half an hour into the film. Right from the start it does a lazy job at getting our attention. The build up is quite poorly done and the characters introduced come across as totally uninteresting. First off we get the obligatory opening horror kill sequence, and there is really nothing new here. Then we slowly and monotony get introduced to the various characters, which pretty much all lack any kind of depth or development. But since this is a horror film I can forgive this area though, and perhaps they will change over time as the movie progresses…
When things start to go down, I instantly became annoyed with the characters, which just confirmed my observation even further. They were all simply yelling and screaming for an unbroken period of 10 minutes or so, and not in a frightened and well-acted kind of way, but just plain annoying screams and you couldn't separate one from the other. Obviously, there was the girl who ends up becoming the leading character, who was pretty much the only one with a sense of variation from the others. Not only were the characters annoying and one-sided, they acted completely stupid in a way you would never do and that pissed me off, especially combined with the many clichés. I hate it when suspense or terror is created purely out of the fact that the characters must be brainless to follow through with a plot point...
You're Next is filled with clichés as well, which didn't truly annoy me at first, since I know the director has a soft spot for doing homages to different genres and eras of cinema. But this just wasn't done in a respectful or inventive manner, or even lifted the movie to a higher level of originality or enjoyment. It just became utterly predictable, and you could simply just sit there and point out pretty much everything that would happen next (I really didn't know the title of the film referred to the many clichés of the horror genre... who would have thought?)
The humour in the film threw me off several times as well. In my book it is hard to balance humour and horror unless you go all the way to one side (like Shaun of the Dead or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil). For me it didn’t work at all, because I had no idea when to laugh and when not to. It felt like it tried to hard to be funny and it just came across as unprofessional and poorly directed instead.
When it comes to the soundtrack, it was a bit all over the place. Towards the end it slowly turned into this 80s synthetic sounding ballad, which reminded me of his recent film The Guest which I really enjoyed. I guess it was okay. At least better than the aggressive and repetitive soundtrack coming before it, which wasn't good in my opinion. The visuals were fine, the acting acceptable, but overall I had a hard time enjoying this because of all the stupidity, mistakes and mishaps to be found, which ended up completely over-shining the greater parts of the film.