While not necessarily a big fan of all her many literary works, I’m very much impressed with Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None. Originally published in 1939 under the far more politically incorrect title Ten Little Niggers and subsequently re-titled Ten Little Indians before finally being called And Then There Were None, this is the late Ms. Christie’s all time best selling novel. It involves a group of people brought together on a remote island under various guises, all of which were tailored for them.
Once on this remote island, they realize that the stories they were offered to get them to the place were in fact lies, and that they must now stay on that island and await the return in a couple of days of a boat to pick them up. In time they find a nursery rhyme and ten Indian figurines. When the first of them die, they realize the person’s death matched the first death described in the rhyme…and they also find the figurine that matched this death broken.
So a countdown begins…who is the murderer among them and who is the next to die? And, in the end, who, if anyone, will survive?
As good as the book is, I felt the first theatrical version of it, made in 1945, made some great improvements to what was a pretty grim novel. In the movie, we had a genuine heroine and hero, something that was absent from Ms. Christie’s book. I also thought the resolution played out a little better in the film.
Having said that, both the novel and film are terrific and, I believe, have been the source of inspiration to many, many works that followed. Certainly the concept of a group of people gathering together at an isolated place and then getting picked off one after the other has been used in many works. It certainly was somewhere in the back of my mind when I wrote Chameleon.
Which brings us to the 2011 film You’re Next. The story involves the wealthy husband/wife patriarchs of a large family arranging a get together of themselves, their sons and daughters and their lovers for the weekend in a remote mansion…and the hell that breaks loose when a group of mask wearing individuals attack and start killing them off.
When this movie was originally released to the film festival circuit, it received positive word of mouth and I was curious to see it. Eventually it was picked up and released to theaters, though to a limited run. It wasn’t until yesterday that I finally got a chance to see it.
Was it worth the wait?
Unfortunately, the answer to me was a resounding “no.”
You’re Next is an at times clever, at times very gory (in fact, a little too gory for my taste) experience. It also attempts to be a mystery before turning into a black comedy. Unfortunately, all those shifts in tone hurt rather than helped. The opening bit with the family meal and first attack on them are probably the film’s highlight, though one can also find a bit of pleasure in the butt-kicking and very resourceful heroine (played by Sharni Vinson) who isn’t about to let these masked killers get her.
Unfortunately, the film is too often gory and sadistic. Considering the ultimate revelation of what it was all about, very much unnecessarily so. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but given the plot behind the whole thing, there had to be a far easier way of accomplishing what was needed to accomplish, right? Stealthy attacks would have accomplished what was needed instead of a big frontal attack that insured everyone was scurrying around from the word go.
Really, really silly if you think about it.
The bottom line is this: if you’re in the mood for a mystery featuring characters getting picked off one after the other, read Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None or watch the 1945 film version. It’s far better than spending the same amount of time with You’re Next.