When Joss Whedon set out to make Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he envisioned a TV series about the sort of teenage girl you'd usually find killed off in the opening act of a horror movie actually kicking ass, a tradition which You're Next - shot in 2011 but released in 2013 - takes to the next level. Which is another way of saying: female roles in horror movies have come a long way, and You're Next is definitive proof of that. A meta-horror flick in every sense, You're Next begins like any other horror movie about a home invasion; a surprise attack, followed by the first death. But it's soon after this that You're Next cleverly subverts our expectations; it turns out that the movie's female lead is actually a survival expert, and spends the next hour socking it to her vastly inferior antagonists. As an advancement of horror movie cliche, this is defining stuff.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
