SXSW Film Fest, Day 6: "You're Next," "Rewind This!," & "Coldwater"

Director: Adam Wingard

Stars: Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Rob Moran, Barbara Crampton, Margaret Laney, Amy Seimetz, Ti West

Running time: 95 minutes

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Score: 8/10

For independent horror aficionados, You're Next has become a Holy Grail of sorts. After premiering at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival to rave reviews, director Adam Wingard's (A Horrible Way to Die, V/H/S) crafty home invasion flick was picked up for distribution by genre giant Lionsgate, the heads of which then limited its subsequent exposure to just one epic Fantastic Fest screening weeks later. With its post-festival buzz sky-high, You're Next fell victim to Lionsgate's merger with Summit Entertainment two months later, a business move that put the film on the back burner for two long, anticipation-laden years for those unfortunate enough to attend either TIFF or Fantastic Fest in 2011.

Now that You're Next finally has an August 23 release date, Lionsgate programmed Wingard's crowd-pleaser as one of SXSW's Midnighters, and the word-of-mouth has circulated throughout Austin since the first You're Next showing last Sunday night. But is it really the second coming of self-aware horror, a la The Cabin in the Woods?

Not quite, and it's all good. It's not going to reinvent horror—rather, You're Next is simply a vastly entertaining and well-staged blast of adrenaline, carnage, clever humor, and "final girl" subversion, the last of which is credited to standout star Sharni Vinson. Screenwriter Simon Barrett tweaks the overused "home invasion" sub-genre to pose the question: What happens when somebody actually fights back? At times, You're Next rocks with an energy comparable to The Strangers on steroids, due to the three-way marriage of Wingard's kinetic direction, a breakneck pace once the violence sets in, and Vinson's serious ability to whoop tons of ass.

Before the bodies hit the floor, though, You're Next is actually a strong comedy of family dysfunction. It's Aubrey (beloved veteran scream queen Barbara Crampton) and Paul Davison's (Rob Moran) 35th wedding anniversary, and all four of their kids are coming over to their swanky, deep-in-the-woods mansion for dinner: the level-headed professor Crispin (AJ Bowen), the arrogant douchebag Drake (Joe Swanberg), the upbeat Aimee (Amy Seimetz), and the more subdued Felix (Nicholas Tucci). They each bring their significant other, Crispin's being Aussie cutie Erin (Vinson). During the contentious supper, there's a sudden—and well-executed on Wingard's part—attack via cross-bow, and from there You're Next speeds into overdrive.

Much has been said about how Barrett's script is one of horror's smartest in years, an opinion that'll only hold water with viewers who know slasher cinema well. Barrett conceives a few particularly stupid tactics for his characters to attempt in the course of life preservation, techniques that earned huge laughs from the in-the-know SXSW audience but could very well fall flat for August ticket-buyers who don't get the tongue-in-cheek jabs.

In one scene, someone thinks it'd be wise to fool the outdoor assailants by, get this, running at full speed through the front door, even though the killers have already shown that they're working the aforementioned cross-bow. The payoff is funny and savage, but it'll ring as little more than idiocy for people who've never seen moronic characters in '80s horror flicks off themselves through poor decision-making.

The good news: Wingard and Barrett, thankfully, don't keep You're Next strictly for insiders. Once Vinson's Erin starts complicating the attackers' plan, the film upgrades into a raucous, applause-worthy series of tense cat-and-mouse stalking, vicious beatdowns, and shots purposely designed to turn Vinson into the best horror movie heroine since the Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott from the Scream franchise.

Backed by an occasionally abrasive but wholly effective synth score that's clearly influenced by John Carpenter's sensibility, You're Next is the opposite of a slow-burn horror—it's fast, grim, and humorously mean-spirited. Hopefully Lionsgate handles its marketing properly this summer, because Wingard's long-awaited film really delivers on its promises of fun, jolting horror. It's a crossover movie that's waiting to find its mainstream following.

Director: Josh Johnson
Running time: 94 minutes
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Score: 6/10

There's a very specific audience for Rewind This!, director Josh Johnson's passion project about the fascination with, and importance of, the old-school V/H/S home video format. To see if you fit into its target demographic, have a look through our past list of the 50 best bad movies and ask yourself, Would I ever watch any of these films? If your response mirrors something to the effect of, "I've seen, and loved, most of these," you're the ideal Rewind This! viewer.

A celebration of a now archaic technology, Johnson's informative doc offers a cultural history of V/H/S that's never too scholarly for its own good—if anything, it's positively anti-academic. With his roster of film critics, programmers, directors, tape collectors, and store owners, Johnson makes sure to emphasize the enjoyment factors associated with V/H/S nostalgia over stuffy history-book teachings. He accentuates interviewees' comments about hard-to-find treasures like former NFL star Bubba Smith's awkward workout video Bubba's Until it Hurts with some hilariously cheesy clips. The weirder a person's personal V/H/S collection is—like Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson's, which, he's proud to admit, houses 82 movie titles beginning with "Dead, Deadly, or Death"—the cooler he or she comes across in Rewind This!.

And, yes, our recent gallery of the craziest horror V/H/S box cover art confirms that Complex is of the same mind as Mr. Carlson, thus Rewind This! is a charming success. Yet, featuring a majority of pro-nostalgia voices, it's preaching to a B-movie-loving choir, unabashedly catering to people who'll happily watch movies like Witchboard and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama multiple times.

Frank Henelotter—director of 'the campy '80s flicks Basket Case and Frankenhooker—throws the gauntlet down while discussing the prestigious The Criterion Collection's "boring" DVD/Blu-ray cover art, saying with a smile, "Criterion, go fuck yourself." Whether you're ready to slap him five or shrug Henelotter's comment off as lowbrow pandering should determine your reaction to Rewind This!.

Director: Vincent Grashaw
Stars: PJ Boudousqué, James C. Burns, Chris Petrovski, Octavius J. Johnson, Nicholas Bateman, Stephanie Simbari
Running time: 104 minutes
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Score: 8/10

Accomplished and dealing out powerful damage, Coldwater should be a calling card for first-time feature director Vincent Grashaw. Often at film festivals like SXSW, many of the narrative entries look and feel unpolished—sometimes that works in the film's favor, other times it's the source of criticism. Coldwater, on the other hand, has the storytelling maturity, gripping pace, and grade-A performances (from a group of unknown actors) that one would find in a veteran's third or fourth movie.

Working with some heavy subject matter didn't hurt Grashaw either. Set in an off-the-grid teenage rehabilitation compound deep into the wilderness, Coldwater presents a world of cruel, unusual, and illegal discipline that, as Grashaw pointed out during the screening's Q&A, exists in more harshness than he shows in his film. That's alarming to think about, too, since Coldwater doesn't shy away from brutality.

Ryan Gosling lookalike PJ Boudousqué gives a commanding performance as Brad Lunders, a troubled youth who sells drugs, hates his widowed mother's new boyfriend, and loves his girlfriend even when she chastises him for dealing. A tragedy strikes that finally convinces his mother to pay a couple of goons to physically remove Brad from his bedroom one night, toss him into the back of a van, and sent him off to the Coldwater campus, where a hard-nosed, retired marine colonel (James C. Burns) runs the place with a toughness that'd make Full Metal Jacket's Sergeant Hartman wince.

The hell that is the Coldwater facility is a fully realized and traumatic world. Grashaw and co-writer Mark Penney take their time to establish a large ensemble of characters, all of whom register emotionally and are played with a collective assuredness by the film's gifted cast of twenty-something males. Whenever someone gets beaten down or stuck in a hot box with their arms tied above their heads (which happens quite a bit), the pain is tangible.

And as Coldwater unpredictable energy escalates into forcible violence and pure darkness, Grashaw's intense debut generates the highest level of raw suspense seen thus far in any 2013 SXSW movie.