YOU'RE NEXT

YOU’RE NEXT

Jeri Jacquin, Movie Maven

Coming to theatres this Friday from director Adam Wingard, Hanway Films, Snoot Entertainment and Lionsgate comes a thriller that lets you know YOU’RE NEXT.

This film tells the story of the Davison family reunion. The first to arrive is Mom Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) and Dad Paul (Rob Moran) who almost immediately think there is someone might have been in the house. As more family arrives that feeling diminishes with the joy of being together.

Son Felix (Nicholas Tucci) arrives with girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn), Drake (Joe Swanberg) and girlfriend Kelly (Margaret Laney), Aimee (Amy Seimetz) and boyfriend Tariq (Ti West) and finally Crispian (AJ Bowen) and girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson).

As they sit down to a family meal it doesn’t take long before Drake and Crispian are at each other for obvious childhood arguments. It is Tariq who notices something odd outside the window and within seconds the bloody mayhem begins.

Wandering around the woods and in the Davison house is three men wearing a Lamb Mask (L.C. Holt), a Tiger Mask (Simon Barrett) and a Fox Mask (Lane Hughes) and there is no explanation as to why they are terrorizing the family.

In a slow descent into craziness, the craziest one is closer than you think!

FINAL WORD: Lets start with the bad ass of the film and that would be Sharni Vinson as Erin. As the rest of the family falls apart screaming senselessly, Vinson’s character jumps into action protecting everyone. Trust me the family didn’t make it easy on her in any way up to the bitter end! Through it all Vinson’s character kept her wits while all those around were losing there’s. I applauded her several times!

That pretty much sums up my review of the actors because, as you can imagine, they slowly drop off one at a time. I’m not about to ruin a good night at the movies with friends by nit picking on who does what, why, where and blah blah blah!

Just know there are good guys, bad guys and its your job to decide who is who!

TUBS OF POPCORN: I give YOU’RE NEXT three and a half tubs of popcorn out of five. Yes, I had a good time and this film doesn’t hesitate to smack the senses, make you laugh inappropriately, grab a cheer when least expected, want to jump into the film and help Erin kick some ass and finally get the blood racing in my own veins!

The acting is a little wackadoodle but in a strange-twisted-out-of-body way it really did help keep the audience off balance. There are creative ideas here and very, very intelligent ideas. Anytime I watch a film and say out loud, ‘oh sh*t’ right before it happens I get to smile and jump at the same time. Such a win-win! It’s also not a big budget film but again it works in favor of the film. Coming in at 95 minutes it’s just enough to keep the audience from blending their own brains. 

Starting off at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival it has slowly made its way onto the big screen to audiences looking for a little bit of creepy. It garnered the film Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay for Simon Barrett and Best Actress for said badass Sharni Vinson.

The masks were scooped up by the audience who lined up to see the film. Imagine the look on the faces of innocent moviegoers who knew nothing about the film? I watched and listened to the ‘what’s that?’, ‘why are they wearing the masks?’, and my favorite ‘holy crap I want one of those!’. Lionsgate hits a home run with that idea and yes, I have them too!

In the end – the animals will hunt you!