Perhaps Adam Wingard, the director of “You’re Next,” was hoping to do for the home-invasion genre what Wes Craven did for slasher movies with “Scream”—though with the passage of nearly two decades a lot more bloodletting is required, of course—but if so, he’s failed miserably. This is a thoroughly repulsive picture that’s even worse when it tries to add some dark humor to the grisly mix of carnage and gore.

The plot’s a bare-bones one. Wealthy Paul and Aubrey Davison (Rob Moran and Barbara Crampton) arrive at their remote country house to celebrate their thirty-fifth anniversary with their grown children, unaware that their neighbors (Larry Fessenden and Kate Lyn Sheil) have been butchered by a bunch of crossbow-wielding, animal-mask-wearing intruders. Soon their brood shows up too: Crispian (A.J. Bower), a college prof and failed writer, along with his girlfriend (and ex-student) Erin (Sharni Vinson); his brother Drake (Joe Swanberg), who enjoys picking on Crispian, and his wife Kelly (Margaret Laney); sourpuss Felix (Nicholas Tucci) and his grim girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn); and daddy’s little girl Aimee (Amy Seimetz), accompanied by her boyfriend, self-styled filmmaker Tariq (Ti West). As they sit down to a celebratory dinner, the occasion is abruptly interrupted by arrows crashing through the windows, beginning a nightlong slaughter from outside and inside the house.

The reaction of most of the targets is predictably stupid. The only person who shows any smarts in dealing with the situation is Erin, an Australian who shortly reveals that she grew up in a survivalist compound and proves pretty skilled at both defense and offense; she becomes the de facto heroine of the piece, employing knives, hammers and a variety of kitchen implements against the attackers. The script by Simon Barrett (who also plays one of the intruders) throws in a couple of revelations about the motivations behind the mayhem that are meant to surprise, but are really so hoary that they might have been concocted by George M. Cohen. And the final twist might just strongly remind you of the picture that started the whole modern zombie craze. In addition to all the splatter that accompanies the many deaths along the way, Barrett tosses in dollops of deadpan humor, especially in a long apologetic monologue toward the close, but they just increase the artificiality of what’s already a totally synthetic shock-inducing contraption.

Of the actors, only Vinson comes across as remotely effective as the sole competent person in sight (and here one must include those bowmen, who prove the most inept bunch of housebreakers since Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern threatened Macaulay Culkin). Some of the others are pals of Wingard’s from the ultra-cheap indie moviemaking circuit—Swanberg, Fessenden and West are directors themselves—and they’re pretty terrible, but those members of the cast who are pro actors aren’t really any better. The picture has the dingy, ragged look typical of such low-budget stuff—the production design is by Thomas S. Hammock and the cinematographer was Andrew Palermo. But one suspects that most of the money was spent on makeup effects.

There will probably be those who argue that “You’re Next” isn’t just another home invasion gorefest, but some sort of commentary on the genre. But if that’s what Wingard was after, he’s been trumped well in advance by Mchael Hanecke, whose “Funny Games” has already been there and done that—twice, once in German and then in English. By contrast this is just second-hand goods, poorly done at that.