Upamanyu Biswas
In ‘You’re Next,’ a family reunion in a rural Missouri estate goes completely wrong when a group of masked attackers begin hunting down the house’s inhabitants. The slasher horror movie follows Erin, a young woman who accompanies her boyfriend, Crispin Davison, to a reunion between the Davison family members. The family’s heads, Paul and Aubrey, organize the reunion as a way to catch up with their children and their partners. However, when a crew of mysterious home invaders begins attacking members of the massive estate, Erin has to utilize all her skills to survive the onslaught and find out the reasons behind the attack.
Directed by Adam Wingard, ‘You’re Next’ captures the tense, riveting atmosphere of an isolated homestead under siege while a gripping narrative about survival comes to the fore. The gory premise employs several tried and tested motifs of the slasher genre but manages to ground it through gritty and bone-crunching action. With the family’s survival at stake, a deeper mystery surrounding the attacker’s motivations takes precedence as the horror movie blends over-the-top sequences with a hard-edged tone. However, at its heart, the film’s inspirations become relevant through its exploration of the inherent anxiety-filled topic of home invasion.
You’re Next is Vaguely Inspired by Classic Agatha Christie Mysteries
‘You’re Next’ is a fictional horror story written by Simon Barrett under the direction of Adam Wingard. While the movie’s general premise is built exclusively around the home invasion narrative, Barrett took inspiration from other sources, most prominently Agatha Christie novels, to craft a complex story with several ins and outs. The writer maintained that it was important for him and Wingard to have more fleshed-out motivations for the killers in the story, something that Christie’s works helped bring to the table. Barrett primarily drew from the author’s 1939 novel, ‘And Then There Were None,’ which he self-admittedly is a massive fan of. The purpose, as Wingard stated, was to “give the killers a motivation beyond randomness or thrill killing or any of that other stuff.”
Themes of family conflict and a complex underlying drama also play a part in the movie, albeit overridden by its other accompanying elements. Those central markers are some of the defining traits of Agatha Christie’s mysteries, as the writer was famed for her ability to craft intricate dramas constructed around a main mystery plot. It only adds to the tightness, tension, and suspense of the story and contributes more layers to an otherwise straightforward premise. Even outside of the indirect influences, the film has its shining moments through the game of cat and mouse engendered between the Davison family members and their hunters. When that dynamic becomes well-worn, the story plunges into other twists and turns, adding flavor and spice to keep it engaging and grounded in intrigue.
Additionally, another benefit of plucking from Christie’s narrative was to ensure the correct portrayal of a “strong female protagonist,” which the writer said most slasher films often do not get right. He also named other chamber mysteries and screwball comedies like ‘Bringing Up Baby’ as a reference point for the narrative. While he didn’t craft the story around any specific event or existing piece of fiction, the inspirations for the movie were plenty in the mind of the writer, who said that some of them only came to him after he finished the development process. To that end, movies like ‘Twitch of the Death Nerve’ and Mario Bava’s ‘Bay of Blood’ were also subconsciously relevant to the creative venture, though not actively influencing it.
You’re Next Embraces its Subgenre Roots Without Basking in Gratuitous Violence
In many ways, the initial inspiration for ‘You’re Next’ sprang up after a discussion between Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett. The director explained that the concept came about because of his fascination with the home invasion subgenre of films, citing it as the only type of movie that truly scares him. He said, “In the instance of ‘You’re Next,’ I said, ‘Hey Simon, I really think like the only type of movies that are scaring me are home invasion movies like ‘Them’ and ‘The Strangers.’ I just rewatched ‘Scream’ and the first ten minutes of ‘Scream’ are f****** stellar. And I said, ‘I think this is the subgenre we want to tackle.’ And Simon took it from there.” The center heartbeat of the film is built around the primal fear of strangers in masks trespassing over the sanctity of a home.
The simple but powerful premise at the core of the film helps keep a tense atmosphere that is promptly broken by exaggerated scenes of violence. However, the violence is never the point of the movie in the eyes of the director. He stated it as an evolution within the horror genre and the morphing expectations of an audience seeking to be challenged by more than just extreme violence. Those challenges bring a different perspective to the film’s aesthetic but also double down on its various gimmicks. In Wingard’s own words, “It’s about showing it from a different perspective and actually just trying to make a fun horror film.” The slasher horror may be chock-full of overblown set-pieces and an elevated narrative, but in many ways, it brings a starkness to the reality of the situation that does not allow things to become too grim.
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