2011 You’re Next

• Directed by: Adam Wingard
• Written by: Simon Barrett
• Stars: Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufUQWpEkbf0

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The family gets together for mom and dad’s anniversary at their huge house in the country. Home invaders crash the party and things get deadly and violent. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game, and we’re left wondering who is going to survive to the end. Home invasions have been done before, but this was an especially good one. We would recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a couple having bad sex. Erik goes off for a shower, and she turns on some music. He comes out of the shower and sees “You’re Next” written on the mirror in his girlfriend’s blood. He is, in fact, next.

Paul and Aubrey arrive at the house next door to Erik’s, and the front door has been opened. They go in and start cleaning up. Paul goes to check out the upstairs, but is interrupted by Crispin, their son, and Erin, who have just arrived. There is, however, someone up there. Aimee and Tariq show up next, along with Felix and Zee.

The next morning, Crispin’s brother Drake and wife Kelly arrive and annoy Crispin. Aubrey sends Erin over to Erik’s house to borrow some milk. She goes over there but doesn’t see Erik’s body.

Dinnertime rolls around, and soon, the whole family is arguing. Tariq notices someone outside, and whoever it is out there shoots him in the head. The shots just keep on coming, and Drake gets it in the back as well. Panic ensues.

They talk Aimee into running for help, and that goes very badly, very quickly. More screaming ensues as Aimee dies from a wire-cut throat.

Aubrey goes upstairs to cry, but she’s attacked by a killer in a fox mask. Erin is also attacked, but fights him off. “You’re Next” is written on the wall. Kelly gets out the front door and runs to Erik’s house, where she runs into a sheep-masked man who finishes her off with an axe.

Crispin decides it’s his turn to run for help. Tigerman breaks in through the window, but Erin beats him to death– and she’s sure he won’t be getting up again. Paul thinks this whole thing was an organized attack and that they’ve been watching the house for days, but then he gets his throat cut and can’t elaborate further.

Turns out, the animal-men are working for Felix and Zee. Erin is still out there trying to find a way out. Sheepface finds the dead tigerman and freaks out; that was probably his brother or something. He runs into Drake, who still isn’t dead, but Erin runs him off before anyone else dies.

Drake and Erin meet up with Felix and Zee to barricade the doors. Erin says she grew up in a survivalist compound, and she’s learned some weird stuff. Felix stabs Drake repeatedly with multiple screwdrivers, and this time, he’s really going to die.

Erin jumps out the window and starts running through the woods. Sheephead steps on a nail trap which he finds annoying. Zee wants to have sex with Felix on the bed next to his dead mother. Erin hides and overhears Felix yelling at the killers for their incompetence.

Erin stabs sheephead in the forehead, and he looks dead. She then sets out “Home Alone-ing” the house. Naturally, the fox-head comes in through the window instead of the booby-trapped door. Erin uses a flashbulb to distract him and then kill him. No more masked men, just Felix and Zee are left.

Felix attacks Erin, who kills him very creatively. Zee simply gets stabbed in the head.

Felix’s phone rings; it’s Crispin, wanting to know if the murders are done. Erin is just a bit unhappy that her boyfriend would set her up to be murdered. He goes inside and runs into Erin. He explains that there was a reason she was there; as a surviving witness. He knows they can work through this as a couple. Will she join him as an accomplice?

No, she stabs him. Then she falls over; the cops have arrived and shot her. He opens the front door, which is still booby trapped, and gets an axe to the face. Credits roll.

Brian’s Commentary

We both would have insisted that we’d seen this before, but we hadn’t. It was probably since the movie poster looks so much like similar movies with home invasions by people in animal masks.

Rich people, out that far in the country, and they didn’t even have a hunting rifle? I am skeptical. I do like that these killers aren’t mysterious, unstoppable forces. They’re just guys in masks, and, although not stupid, they aren’t super overcompetent, either.

I did like this one.

Kevin’s Commentary

I suspected before the reveal that Felix was in on it. It seemed unnecessarily elaborate and drawn out though if he just wanted it to look like home invaders killed everyone else – they took their time doing it with missed opportunities to wrap things up faster. Crispin being in on it too caught me by complete surprise.

The house where it was filmed was pretty awesome.

It was kind of refreshing to see Erin break the trope of knocking down a bad guy, then running away and giving them a chance to get up and resume the chase. When she got one down, she made sure they stayed down permanently.

I thought this was a very good one. I liked it a lot.