Lake Mungo was such a brilliant slow burn creeper, it totally is the perfect film to watch late at night, in the dark with the volume low. Unlike many uninspired, uninteresting, overly produced, horror films (both big budget and small), Lake Mungo doesn't abuse the "keep-it-kinda-quiet-quiet-quiet-HUGESCARYNOISE-oh-it-was-just-a-regular-OHMYGODANOTHERNOISE" trope. Leave loud-quiet-loud to The Pixies or at the very least Radiohead. But Lake Mungo is either normal room volume or whispering, such a quiet, restrained horror flick that actually gives you characters and a story and things to take interest in or be moved by. Unlike You're Next.
I was actually surprised that the filmmakers didn't call it "Your Next" just to be ironic, like, knowing? You know? Like, "hey we're using this word, but like the wrong form of the word, because like, we went to college?". Which is not a zing against college, I actually just graduated from college and am looking forward to talking down to people for the rest of my life about it.
You're Next is a mumblecore horror movie, not only containing the usual mumblecore creatives and cast but also obeying all the shittiest, most transparent aspects of mumblecore cinema. Oh and shoot me now it's called mumblegore. Of course it is. So what the plan apparently is with these kinds of films is that they're supposed to be "characterized by low budget production values and amateur actors, heavily focused on naturalistic dialogue."
What You're Next manages to do is to ditch the low budget production values (except on the writing, which is funny, because you'd think that'd be the cheapest to do, except wait, doesn't mumblecore often encourage their amateur actors to improv because it's like, realerer man?), keep the amateur actors (aka other directors of mumblecore) and focus on naturalistic dialogue by having everyone talk over each other and have the script be tedious, boring and predictable.
A lot is made about the "twist" in the few reviews I found, mostly on imdb and now I have to assume written by friends and family of the filmmakers and the cast. The "twist" isn't even a twist. It's not a plot twist, it's plot development. You just reveal some more aspects of the story, there's no twist. In fact, just saying that there is a twist gives away the twist, it's so not a twist.
The story seems to be trying to be both a homage to genre campiness and a genuinely smart slasher flick but manages to fail at both and fail spectacularly. Campiness implies fun and smart implies smart and You're Next is neither.
The good thing I took away from the film was a list of ideas on how to actually make a good, indie horror film. It doesn't make any sense to strip away the "fake" hollywoodness of the production yet continue to both film and soundtrack the movie just like a big, stupid hollywood one. The camera work and the use of sound both just shriek of big budget, low brain, quick cash, hollywood horror dreck. If you're actually trying to be an alternative to something, you have to actually do things differently. Not think that you're an auteur because you have a bad script and terrible actors.
The story is ridiculous. Not fun ridiculous, not "come on, I mean, ok sure but wasn't it cool when?" ridiculous, but "oh for fucks sake, what?" ridiculous. This movie is like the kid in high school who tries way too hard and thinks that everyone is an idiot and no one understands him, when in actuality, everyone understands him, it's just that nobody cares. The gore is decent, I'll say that, but again everything in this movie is such a put on, it's teenagers smoking cigarettes listening to bob dylan thinking "yeah man, i get this, this world is bullshit man". It's like that, but in movie form.
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