You're Next is finally out in the US two years after it first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. The Adam Wingard movie took its time reaching cinema release, all the while building up its underground status and critical appreciation.

Sharni Vinson Wendy Glenn
Sharni Vinson & Wendy Glenn Star In The Critically Praised You're Next.

Aren't we all sick of slashers now? After recent supernatural horror The Conjuring's success, you'd think the trend within horror genre would be to move away from the randomly motivated stabby-rip-stab-stab killings and more towards the ghosts, aliens and demons of Paranormal Activity, The Woman In Black and Insidious.

Truly, the days of the 'gore porn' horror subgenre are numbered with the trend moving away from the sickening, just-for-the-sake-of-it violence of Hostel, Saw and Scream. The latter became virtually a parody of itself by the recent fourth instalment, and could have signalled the demise of the home invasion horror. However, movies such as 2008's The Strangers have provided a bridge between the senseless horror of Scream and paved the way for more sparse and subverted yet genuinely chilling films that we see now with You're Next.

Watch The You're Next Trailer:

The movie certainly tips his hat to the Liv Tyler-starring The Strangers with it's masked, mute villains and Scream's ruthless pursuit of victims' death by any means possible. You're Next centres on a family who head to their forest retreat for a reunion and plenty of screen time is spent painting the idyll of their getaway and the contentedness of the group. That is, until an argument breaks out and the tranquil is shattered - literally - by crossbow arrows fired through the window picking off family members. A terrifying pursuit ensues, as the remaining family members are set upon by three killers wearing animal masks with some brutal weaponry. However, in a plot twist, the killers hadn't expected to be hunted themselves and the film's second half gives way to some surprising contradictions.

You're Next Premiere
Guests At The Premiere.

The trailer gives a sense of how scary the film can be, with shots revealed of the woodland retreat and a family reunion beset by psychotic axe men in animal masks. Has the trailer given away too much? We're shown plenty of flashes of the violence, full body shots of the three killers as well as the chilling line delivered: "they've been watching us for days." Aside from the movie's resolution, we're shown plenty of shots that, it would be easy to assume, gives away some of the film's biggest jumpscares.

Wingard's movie clearly revels in its use of an unlikely hero and uses this element of surprise to push boundaries. Though The Strangers was an effective killing spree, it only ever reached a rating of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, presumably because of its occasional predictability. You're Next currently sits at a plump 90% on the same reviews aggregator, with Empire impressed, complimenting "some genuinely shocking murders." The LA Times too nods in unison, describing You're Next as "offbeat enough to keep even hardened connoisseurs of body-count entertainment on their toes."

Sharni Vinson You're Next
Sharni Vinson Plays Erin: Who's Next?

Ultimately, You're Next serves a purpose of proving that slashers can still be smart, subtle and intriguing without losing heights of shock factor or body count. We don't need ketchup spurted all over the walls or camera to be scared, which Wingard has here recognised. As a relative newcomer into the genre, we can expect even greater horror from the man pegged as the next Sam Raimi.