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| Sharni Vinson in You're Next |
Cast: Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, A.J. Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Margaret Laney, Amy Seimetz, Ti West, Rob Moran, Barbara Crampton, L.C. Holt, Simon Barrett, Lane Hughes. Screenplay: Simon Barrett. Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo. Production design: Tom Hammock. Film editing: Adam Wingard. Music: Mads Heidtberg, Jasper Lee, Kyle McKinnon, Adam Wingard.
When a horror thriller starts with a couple having sex, you can bet that they're not long for the world. And after these first and apparently unrelated victims, when you see a family gathering in a somewhat isolated house, it's exactly as if you're being introduced to the killer's bill of fare. Adam Winberg's You're Next is predictable like that. It's a reunion of siblings and their plus-ones with Mom (Barbara Crampton) and Dad (Rob Moran), and it doesn't take long before the dinner table, after Dad says grace, is alive with arguments and old animosities. The squabble is cut short, however, when one of the plus-ones,Tariq (a cameo by horror director Ti West), gets shot through the head by an arrow coming from a crossbow outside. There's a lot of panicky scrambling and the body count rises. The assailants appear as a trio in animal masks, a tiger, a lamb, and a fox. Eventually, one of the beleaguered house guests takes charge: Erin (Sharni Vinson), the girlfriend of Crispian (A.J. Bowen). He volunteers to try to slip out of the house and go for help, while she marshals the survivors and arms them with whatever sharp objects and blunt instruments they can find in the house. It turns out that Erin is the daughter of a survivalist who got her training back in her native Australia, and her skills at fighting back are many. There are a few surprises as the who and why of this massacre are revealed, but mostly You're Next is routine bloodshed passably executed.
