You're Next

Description from Netflix:

When shy Erin joins her new boyfriend at a family reunion to commemorate his parents’ anniversary, the tense gathering is horrifically interrupted by a gang of masked invaders who brutalize the celebrants…until someone starts fighting back.

My thoughts:

Going to the dollar theater by yourself is always a ton of fun.  I highly recommend it.

I really liked this.  It had a cool 80s slasher vibe to it, due in no small part to the stellar synth soundtrack.  The soundtrack really set the mood for this movie.  The filmmakers also did a great job at using silence at times to ratchet up the tension. 

It would be easy to compare this to The Strangers, and I suppose there’s a bit of that in here, mainly because it’s a home invasion movie with masks.  But, as I pointed out above, it looks and feels more like an 80s slasher.  This really felt more like Friday the 13^th or Halloween than The Strangers.

But even that comparison isn’t overly accurate.  Erin was far more competent at fighting back than the majority of final girls in those movies.  Erin is a fighter.  She was raised as a survivalist.  She has no qualms with picking up a meat tenderizer and raining down holy hell on someone twice her size.  This movie won’t rank high on the list of best slashers ever, but Erin should rank pretty high on the list of all-time survivor girls.  She’s scrappy.  She’s nasty.  She’s resourceful.  And she’s responsible for one of the best kills I’ve seen in recent memory. 

Without getting too slap-sticky, this has a lot of really funny moments (provided the gruesome deaths of some main characters is something you find amusing, which I do).  It was never goofy, but there were quite a few laugh-out-loud funny moments.

One of those funny moments was seeing a man in a sheep mask walk around with a crossbow.  I’m not even sure it was supposed to be funny, but it killed me.

This was a really bloody slasher movie.  It earned its R rating.  And it had a terrific ending.  I’m already looking forward to watching it again.  It was a really fun time.

Also, Ti West is in this movie, and he gets killed off really early.  I could watch Ti West get killed a thousand times.  That’s how much I hated The Innkeepers. 

Rating: 5/5