I can’t say I really knew what to expect when I went to see “You’re Next.”

From the promotional material, I could tell that it was a horror movie involving violent antagonists sporting animal masks. However, upon doing further research, I found out that it was a home invasion movie, causing an immediate comparison to be drawn to the movie “The Strangers.”

The movie is about a family reunion gone haywire and the intruders who are responsible for it. However, there is a great deal of tension between some of the family members, which acts as both a recurring theme and plot point in the movie.

With a cast of people that I neither knew nor felt like I had ever seen before (aside from one actress that resembled Rashida Jones), I was forced to form an opinion off of the movie’s style and plot line. None of the actors or actresses were very bad. However, as is the case in many horror movies, they mostly gave subpar, forgettable performances.

But I don’t think that’s entirely their fault – it’s what the movie called for. With “You’re Next” being your typical suspenseful gore fest movie, there wasn’t a lot of room for character development.

What set this movie apart from other movies like it, for me, was its style. Some violent scenes invoked a sense of dark humor in the visual aspect, which I thought worked in its favor and made it feel very surreal and authentic. The animal masks played a part in this because, well, they’re funny looking.

I also enjoyed how diverse all of the characters in the movie were. For some reason, it made me think of the movie “Clue.”

In short, “You’re Next” succeeds in being different – in diverging from its expectations to set a new standard for home invasion movies, or even horror movies altogether.