Adam Wingard’s You're Next, is quite entertaining and in some ways innovative, but it is not a horror film despite it being billed as such. By breaking down the components that comprise this film I plan on doing two things; first, properly make my case for why it should not be considered part of the horror genre; secondly, through such a critique I will explicitly explain the true constitution of a horror film. Wingard is clearly paying homage to a number of tropes such as; the masked bad guys, home invasion, cabin in the woods, surprisingly not helpless final girl, betrayals and twists, and finally, being self-referential.  

The masked bad guys always act as a big audience draw, we just can’t get enough. Such names as Michael Myers, Jigsaw, the Manson Family, and Leatherface come to mind. A big part of their allure is mystery. Our inability to see who is behind the mask creates a sense of foreboding. More then that, it makes us stop and question ourselves, or the person sitting next to us. What primal nature is waiting under the surface? You can remove the jungle, but the animal remains. This film mocks our fear by giving the bad guys sheep, dog, and cat masks; the sheep prods at our fear of senseless violence, the innocent lead to slaughter; the dog represents our fear of being hunted; and the cat is our fear of the night, or the darkness. Now all these fears are constantly present in the horror genre, but here they are dismissed as soon it becomes apparent that there is no great evil. The bad guys in masks are just henchman. Throughout the film they are constantly exposing their vulnerability by getting beat up, and just staying down. It reminds me of the kids movie Home Alone, where the bad guys are just bumbling idots, constantly being outsmarted. Bullets didn’t stop Myers; Leatherface was never in any danger of being stopped; and Krueger’s invincibility is in its own league. There is no evil in this film, because real evil is never able to be defeated soundly. 

Home invasion can go two different ways; it can either be blunt destruction, or it can be psychological torture. The former is what the film opts for, everyone just sort of dies and there is no real terror. I mean maybe that is just bad acting, but I think it has a lot more to do with its self-referential nature, which I will get to later. A home depicts the physical aspect of our body, and the villain who invades that space aims for the soul. The creatures of Invasion of The Body Snatchers didn’t just take the victims body, they get personal and took over identities. The bad guys here just destroyed the exterior of the house, never really entering at all. It is a thrilling ride, but not horror. 

Cabin in the woods combined with the final girl aspect is supposed to stimulate the fear of being alone, hopelessly alone. Done very well in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. By the time we got to that final girl in that film, a terrible sense of dread was firmly in place. The thing is in You're Next Erin (Sharni Vinson) never seems overmatched. I was pretty shocked when she got shot at the end, but even that didn’t kill her. In some ways she is more of a monster then the bad guys, an idea that I will come back to later. The most similar final girl in terms of strength of will and a certain level of control is Sarah in The Descent, but she has nothing on Erin. The feeling of hopelessness in The Descent was constant. Erin is a great character and one of my favorite aspects of the film, but she is just too powerful in comparison to her opponents. 

Monsters? Who believes in those, trust on the other hand is a very real thing, and no one enjoys being betrayed. In a sense betrayal brings back the fear of being alone. Rosemary’s Baby a notable example of showing the horror of betrayal. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had an instance of it also. This film never feels personal which is what makes betrayal hurt. Although, there is one twist at the end that is intriguing. In the very ending a cop is killed by a booby trap. Before that, the cop witnessed Erin stab Crispan in supposal cold blood, then the cop shot Erin, and then radioed in for backup. If we take up the gaze of the cop, Erin becomes the monster. He didn’t see anything but a destroyed house, and a brutal stabbing, no explanations. It made me think of Micheal Myers, we had no explanations for his actions and that made him seem so evil. So, with this innovative ending I will concede that if Erin is supposed to represent the evil, then this could be considered a horror movie. The audencie would be the subject that is betrayed, having throughout the film rooted for Erin who turns out ot be the monster who is coming for us next. However, I don’t think Wingard fleshes out this possibility enough. 

For the most part I don’t enjoy the idea of self-referential films. They over emphasize the cliché tropes too much, and by doing so most of the enjoyable essence is lost. An example of this is a magician who explains his tricks before he preforms them; once one knows the trick all the magic is gone. However, meta movies can still work within a genre. Wes Craven’s Scream is a great example; throughout the film the characters would dictate the horror genre rules, and then Craven followed those rules. The fear came from the forced realization that we (the audience) are the evil. We love horror so much that we constantly pay money to watch it, and by enjoying the feeling of being scared we are responsible for the things that scare us. Another good example is Cabin in The Woods, which worked more with myth, religion, and their consequences. These films succeeded in being self-referential while still being scary because they presented a very real form of evil, You're Next did not.  

For the reason I have presented above I think You're Next is enjoyable. It certainty fits as a thriller, but it should not be considered part of the horror genre. I can know express the true constitutive parts of a horror film; the evil has to be beyond a simple criminal. The fear has to be real, and it has to be too powerful to be dismissible. There can be hope, but it should only be there so that it can be squished. Physical violence is fine, but the damage ought to go beyond the body. The evil’s power must never be properly gauged, or understood lest it be truly defeated. The final criteria is it must be frightening.