Movie Review - You're Next

It's, uh, been awhile since I made a post. Even though I've seen a hundred or two movies since my last update, I felt that when I was regularly reviewing them the actual watching session of the movie changed. I began looking for something to criticize the movie over, which is not something I enjoy doing. I'm more of a "sit back and enjoy the movie" kind of person. And as for recipes...I haven't done any new versions and didn't want to just post copies of other recipes and say "it turned out great!" which would have been obvious. I'm not a creative person, more of a near-expert copycat.

As for why I'm posting about the movie You're Next? Simply put, I really enjoyed it and wanted to share what I liked about it with others. Since I went into the movie not thinking about doing a review, I was able to sit back and enjoy what I saw.

The movie, if you don't know, is the latest home-invasion-horror-thriller movie with a slight twist, this time someone fights back with expertise. Most of the cast are unknowns but I felt they all did a great job. I will admit there were a few scenes which showed acting that was a bit shoddy, yet that's expected from time to time. It's nothing like what Justin Timberlake's acting in Runner Runner looks like, which is pure crud (which is a shame because Ben "newly announced Batman" Affleck looks superb in that movie!).

Obviously it couldn't be a horror movie without blood, and you get lots of it. There is a very unique killing of one of the villains towards the end of the movie that is quite simply Troma-esque. It reminds me of when I was a kid, yelling in excitement as the Toxic Avenger killed someone with a VHS player. In the same format I cheered in the scene in question. The blood itself in the movie did appear to be slightly faking at times, looking very watered down with a strange hue of red. Yet that wasn't distracting unless you specifically looked at it. Only reason I paid attention was because I know a lot of movies don't get it right and it looks really out of place. Not the case here, even with it looking a tad wrong it didn't look out of place or distracting.

One thing that surprised me a lot was the fact that there are a few twists. 2 major twists, in fact. I won't go into any spoilers on it but I am happy to see twists that I don't expect. One they laid the building pieces for with a random comment that you don't even think about. The other, I didn't really catch much of a hint and it did appear to come out of left field.


The big problem I had with the movie, which itself is slight, is the soundtrack. It was too overpowering at times and the music felt out of place. I kept having flashbacks (soundbacks?) of music from the last 80s/early 90s where it too electronic, almost verging on that of 8 bit video game themes. Definitely didn't fit here, but it did remind me how the movie had a bit of an 80s feel at times. Not sure if it was intentional or not.

Another small problem is after a death, the phrase "You're Next" is written in blood on the wall. Yet the size of the text doesn't exactly compute with the time given based on how fast the rest of the people ran to the room in question. Especially if you take into consideration the person writing on the wall would have to reach back for more blood to write everything. Even with 2 people I don't think it would have been possible. Then in another scene it is mentioned that the owner's of the house had been staying there for several days, yet that wasn't properly displayed as it felt like everything occurred in a single day with everyone getting to the house that day.

Overall it was a great movie. Most of the wrong things could easily be dismissed by all the good things. The high content of blood and slashes definitely appeals to horror-fans.