You're Next. To Waste Your Money.

The trailer promised so much: a home invasion movie that suggested a return to the savage cinema of the seventies, the slashers of the eighties and the knowing sensibilities of Funny Games. It looked like a hardcore horror film but it’s actually little more than Home Alone with machetes and crossbows. As a horror fan you get used to forgiving characters doing stupid things to move the plot forwards but when every character in the film makes you want to scream at their idiocy it begins to test your patience. The main characters are dumb enough but the bad guys are even worse. As a result the setup soon becomes farcical and tension soon descends into slapstick. Once people start swinging frying pans around you expect to see someone step on a rake or slip on a banana skin. The animal masks the attackers wear are a good metaphor for what’s wrong with this film. At first they’re creepy and disturbing but then you begin wondering how anyone can see out of them and start questioning the practicality of wearing them until eventually they become laughable, especially when filmed from behind and all you can see is the ears. It’s like Jason from Friday the 13th was into Mickey Mouse instead of hockey.

An adolescent weaned on Agatha Christie could construct a better plot. I expected the villains would be some sort of anti-vivisection group or violent anti-capitalists or something that at least would give this effort some sort of contemporary relevance, but no, it’s about murdering to claim an inheritance. So it’s basically nothing more than a creaky old The Cat and the Canary variant in which the twists are telegraphed well in advance.

Our final girl is a more than capable ass kicker but we never really care about her because all we really know about her is that she grew up on a survivalist camp. Aside from being highly convenient it denies any true character development. She is capable from the offset so we never properly fear for her.

It has the worst horror soundtrack in years, plot holes that you could drive a truck through and some scraping-the-barrel splatter set pieces (death by blender anyone?) but still somehow manages to just about hold your attention and entertain for it’s running time. It just feels that with a bit more thought this could have aspired to something so much better.