"You're Next" (2013)

You've heard this one before: a group of attractive people hole up in a remote house when suddenly they're attacked by unrelenting killers. Slowly they're picked off one by one, and we begin to wonder who will be the next victim. It's the plot of countless horror films and the entire basis for the slasher subgenre. By its initial appearances, You're Next is a typical, though intelligently and confidently mounted, slasher film. However, this sells it short. There's more personality, affection and inventive thrills in the film than there is in most of the horror fare currently out there. You're Next also proves itself stickier and more surprising than we might anticipate a slasher to be in an age of "been there, done that, seen it all". The film starts off like a storyteller telling a good old scary campfire yarn and slowly mounts into something more daring and unexpected. The film carefully and brilliantly plays around with expectations and audience identification. You're Next, on one level, is about horror movies and how we watch them, but rather than getting all meta like Scream or Cabin in the Woods, it does it by more subtle and straightforward narrative means. For instance, you might think you have the so-called "Final Girl" pegged down, but the film knows you think you have things pegged down and throws you for a loop. Brimming with wildly imaginative ideas, pitch-black humor, and some excellent scares, You're Next is what every horror movie should be, fun, thrilling, frightening, without being all too showy about its own showmanship.

Grade: ★★★