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You're Next
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lionsgate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (20th January 2014). |
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The Film
 Some of the best horror films comes from a down and dirty low budget environment, almost always produced independently. Many studio horror films with a decent budget never end up any good (except for maybe John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982)) - for various reason, usually the cast lets the film down, the slickness of the production doesn't lend itself well to horror, etc. Whatever the reason, low budget really suits the genre, the craft of scaring people looks terrific on a shoestring budget and some of the most iconic horror films can claim that title having been produced for under $1 million (or even lower) such as "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974), "Halloween" (1978), "The Evil Dead" (1981) to name a few. The lower budget allows filmmakers to make innovative decisions out of necessity, to be more creative and the cheaper film methods (like grainier film stocks or shooting on a smaller format such as 16mm as apposed to 35mm film) adds depth and texture to the overall aesthetic of the film giving it a "grungy" look. "You're Next" is a recent example of a low budget horror in which the filmmakers created a terrifying experience on a small budget. Filmed in 2011 in Missouri on a budget of $1 million, the film was shot quickly and held its world premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Midnight Madness program, the film was an instant hit with audiences and was soon after picked up for distribution by Lionsgate for $2 million. However for some reason Lionsgate sat on the film for two years and finally released it in August of last year to much hype with a solid marketing campaign that included an appearance at San Diego Comic Con by the filmmakers. The film garnered some excellent reviews (attaining a 74% freshness rating on Rottentomatoes) and a domestic box office taking of $26 million, a nice return on Lionsgate's investment. "You're Next" tells the story of Crispian (A. J. Bowen) and his girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson), who travel to Missouri to attend Crispian's family reunion, they meet up with parents Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) and Paul (Rob Moran), brother, Drake (Joe Swanberg), and Drake's wife, Kelly (Margaret Laney), his other brother, Felix (Nicholas Tucci), and Felix's girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn), and his younger sister Aimee (Amy Seimetz) and her boyfriend Tariq (Ti West) - the Davidson family home is the setting and there's obvious tension between the family but despite this they gather for a family dinner. Things start going awry when each member is targeted by masked intruders, their motives are a mystery, until the shocking end. "You're Next" is a home invasion horror that tries to reinvent the genre. There are several things that are great about "You're Next" primarily Adam Wingard's direction keeps things moving at a fast pace, he manages to adequately build tension and manages to put viewers right in the middle of the terrifying action. This film is a ride, and Wingard doesn't pump the breaks, it just keeps moving forward building momentum from scene to scene. As the film progresses we start to learn more about the family and of the motives behind the intruders. The unravelling narrative is a favorite among horror filmmakers and Wingard uses it to good effect here, while maintaining an element of survival throughout. The cinematography by Andrew Droz Palermo looks good, although about what you'd expect from a film of this ilk. It's dark and shadowy, offering up a sense of dread with muted colors and deep blacks, matching the aesthetic is the tight editing also done by the film's director, which is well paced keeping viewers on the edge at all times and keeping the action moving so as to create a frantic tone. What would a home invasion horror be without the kills? The kills are, in a word, gory. They're graphic and intense. So if you have a weak stomach for this sort of thing, then this movie is not for you. There are some cheap shot scares enhanced with the obligatory sharp music score - expected in this genre, I just wish filmmakers would have more faith in their films and develop an eerie and disturbing tone to keep audiences appropriately scared throughout the run time instead. Horror films that manage that end up being much more impacting and memorable in the long run. A continuous sense of dread is much scarier than a single moment of shock. So, why is this family being terrorized and who is behind it? Part of that is answered at about an hour into the film, I'm not going to spoil it here, but the answers aren't as clever as you'd think. I was really hoping for something unique, a twist that was unexpected and surprising, instead we get fairly uninspired reasoning behind all this madness. That was probably the biggest let down of the entire film, but not the only one. There other glaring problem I found was that this is a film which takes place in Missouri, in a country house... and there are no guns? Seriously, gun crazy America and the family doesn't even have at least a shotgun in the house? Now that's just hard to believe. Granted, if they had guns this film would have ended much quicker, or the family members could have put up more of a fight. The casting fairly decent, no big names, but some competent performers, however, in saying that both Barbara Crampton and Joe Swanberg where weak in their roles. Both actors offered very little to their roles and it's easy to see in the interactions with the ensemble that they are treading water and seemed out of their element. I also found that Erin's character took a proactive/leadership role almost immediately as the mayhem started, as if she'd lived through something like this before, her character needed a little more time to develop to that rather than make an instantaneous turn in order for her to be more believable, instead the filmmakers just writing in some dialogue about her growing up on a "survivalist compound" which neatly explains it all. So we have a film that offers up some decent tension, gore and a frantic pace, while on the other hand the characters aren't that interesting, features character and plot weaknesses and villains with uninspiring motivations. It's one of those films that oozes potential and barley just gets there.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.40:1 mastered in high definition 1080p 24/fps using AVC MPEG-4 compression codec. Mood is developed quickly with the cinematography and this image transfer does a great job of presenting the film as the filmmaker's intended. It's dark, but looks good. The black levels are well balanced and inky with noise being kept to a minimum. Sharpness is excellent, colors are nicely saturated and the print is clean. Overall it's a solid image.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included here in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit as well as a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. For the purposes of this review I chose to view it with its English audio. The strength of the majority of horror films lie in their sound mix and "You're Next" doesn't disappoint. This is a terrific, immersive and often unsettling audio mix. It's richly complex and makes excellent use of the surrounds. Dialogue is nice and clear, ambient surrounds are subtle, seem natural and are effective in building a decent sound space. Directional surrounds are also effectively mixed, effects and score equally make good use of the space. Overall I was pleased with this audio track that suits the film to a tee. Optional subtitles are also included in English, English for the hearing impaired and Spanish.
Extras
Lionsgate has released this film with a few supplements that include two audio commentary, a single featurette plus the film's theatrical trailer. Also featured is a DVD copy of the film as well as a digital copy, below is a closer look at these extras. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY First up is one of the two audio commentary with director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett. I've been reviewing now for over a decade and in that time I've listened to hundreds of commentaries in my time, and as a film fan going back to the days of Laserdisc I've listened to potentially thousands of tracks, it's easy to sleepwalk through a track, we've heard it all and by now disc producers have it down to a science, topics, structure, editing, etc. And once in a while, a track comes along, that, although it still follows the predictable structure covering aspects such as project genesis, writing, casting, working with the cast as well as stunts, technical details and discussing horror elements. This track covers all of that, but what makes it enjoyable is that these two are a joy to listen to, they're passionate and interesting and keep the track moving with some great tidbits for the fans. The second audio commentary is with director Adam Wingard, screenwriter Simon Barrett and actors Sharni Vinson and Barbara Crampton. This track is much less of a making-of track and more of a track in which the participants share stories from the production. I was afraid this track would cover some of the same topics as the previous, but we get a lot of new information here. It's clear these people really enjoyed working with each other and it shows in spades in this track. Next up us the disc's only featurette entitled "No Ordinary Home Invasion: The Making of You're Next" (1080p) which runs for 11 minutes 41 seconds, this is a fairly ordinary EPK style clip that covers the basics of the production. The film's original theatrical trailer (1080p) is also included and runs for 2 minutes 13 seconds. Finally there are a collection of bonus trailers (1080p) for: - "Texas Chainsaw" which runs for 2 minutes 23 seconds. - "The Cabin in the Woods" which runs for 2 minutes 9 seconds. - "The Collection" which runs for 1 minute 4 seconds. - "Fearnet.com" promo which runs for 32 seconds. The disc is also authored with a bookmarks feature. DISC TWO: DVD This disc is the standard DVD copy of the film and also included is a promo code for an UltraViolet digital copy version of the film for portable media devices.
Packaging
Packaged in a 2-disc Blu-ray keep case, initial pressings are housed in a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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