You're Next (2013)

Starring: Sharni Vinson, AJ Bowen, Nicholas Tucci, Barbara Crampton, Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Ti West, Wendy Glenn, Rob Moran

Directed by: Adam Wingard

Rating: 1 2 3 and a half

Sharni Vinson as Erin in You're Next

Like a good ol' fashioned slasher movie in which a fractious bunch of obnoxious individuals are picked off one by one by a masked assailant in a variety of inventive ways? Then you'll love You're Next, the blood-soaked, tongue-in-cheek home invasion movie from V/H/S's Adam Wingard.

Home and Away's Sharni Vinson is really rather good as Final Girl Erin, invited to the country home of the wealthy parents of her soft college teacher boyfriend Crispian (AJ Bowen) to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Also on the guest list are Crispian's dickish brothers Drake (Joe Swanberg) and Felix (Nicholas Tucci) and spoilt sister Aimee (Amy Seimetz) plus their unsuitable partners.

Bound to go well. In fact, if it weren't for the insistent sinister music and 'hiding behind the trees and peering through the windows' shots (does anyone in horror ever close their curtains?) – not to mention the pre-credits slaughter of the neighbours – we could almost be in store for a Rachel Getting Married style dysfunctional family showdown.

The masked assailants in You're Next

Thankfully we're not: instead, after a slightly slow start, we're treated to a delightfully horrible bloodfest in which Home Alone meets Halloween in a gleeful tribute to the '80s slasher movies we know and love. (Drake even spends a large part of the film with an arrow stuck into him like Friday the 13th Kevin Bacon in the EE ads.) And unlike many horror titles that start promisingly but end up pretty lame, the final pay-off is well worth the wait.

So check your brain at the door and enjoy a horror movie that throws everything into the mix – and that would probably include the kitchen sink if there weren't so many other culinary implements that wreak much messier damage...

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