you're next [2011]

is the DVD dead?  i ask because weekend before last anna, nick and i went to a couple of big-box electronics stores, stores that had huge inventories of DVDs, and i found such a scarcity of the plastic discs.  DVDs are still produced but the dominant mode of distribution for films and TV shows is online streaming.  we have a roku device and i've been watching scads of movies and TV shows.  i'll let you in on a not-so-secret: i love online streaming!

that's how i saw this indie horror feature.  i remembered a few positive reviews when it was released but little else about it.  i gave it a shot.  there is a mini movement in indie filmmaking called mumblecore.  mumblecore's practitioners relish an amateur's talents in acting and writing.  sometimes the scripts are threadbare, the production is very low-budget, and the actors kind of non-act.  the finished films can sometimes be sublime; sometimes they screech.  often the subjects of the films engage in relationship talk. 

then there is the off-shoot of horror film that embodies the same techniques and ethos of mumblecore.  these horror movies are called mumblegore.  you're next is a mumblegore flick.  the script is rather weak for dialogue.  the premise is a family reunion complete with attendant boyfriends and girlfriends at the family compound in the woods.  the prologue is a murder set piece of the neighboring couple committed by an assassin clad in black and wearing an over sized animal mask.  after the couple is dispatched the film begins its narrative.

grown children arrive at the house.  mom and dad have a bit of issues between them but they are happy to have their children back at home.  like many families the siblings bicker.  a fight breaks out between two brothers.  everyone screeches at an ungodly level.  this is the first third of the movie.  i nearly turned it off.  with thousands of hours of stuff to watch and only one life to live i can watch the beginning of a film then if that movie proves unpromising shut it off and look for something else.  sometimes i fall prey to a phenomena of over-supply where i can scroll thru movie lists for half an hour and get exhausted by abundance.  i don't know what to choose.  when that happens i shut the TV off and do something else.

luckily i stuck with it.  for when the assassins strike the pace of the movie quickens and the plot is shaped by violent action.  not all is as it seems.  there is a twist in the movie that you can spot 93 millions miles away.  but one character, i won't say who, you should see for yourself, has mad skills and fights the assassins.

i am impressed with this mumblegore iteration.  the director, adam wingard, directed the wraparound segments in another mumblegore feature, v/h/s [2012].  here he does a better job.  in fact, nearly everyone in you're next had a hand directing, starring and writing v/h/s.  i want to see what this group of talented filmmakers do next.  i love online streaming, but for my collection of DVDs, yep, i gonna hang on to them.  hell, i still like those little round plastic things called CDs that need laserbeams to decode and play music and i lament the hard fact that the shops that were once abundant selling music are now few and far between.