Cabin in the Woods [MA]

Five teenagers get the idea to spend the weekend in a cabin in the woods. But all the telltale signs of trouble are along the way. The place doesn’t show up on the GPS, a crazy man at the gas station attempts to ‘dissuade’ them from going, and the house itself is filled with strange and scary things. Soon enough, the group is attacked by horrific supernatural beings, but things get weirder as the night goes on. As the kids continue to exhibit clichéd horror movie behaviour, a group of technicians are sitting in a control room watching and sometimes orchestrating each move the terrified teens make! With their escape attempts being continually foiled, is there any hope of escape? 

Think The Evil Dead meets The Hunger Games. Essentially that’s what this movie is, except it’s not just zombies that orchestrate the violence and scares. Long-time collaborators Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard have come up with this delightfully fresh and modern form of metafiction that draws attention to itself as a horror movie, but in a more subtle and less invasive way than Williamson did in the ‘90s with Scream. Cabin in the Woods, the name itself sounds pretty clichéd and dumb admittedly, is actually a very clever movie that is more than homage to the horror genre, it’s a comment on the quality of horror in varying countries’ cinema. The more you watch it, the more surprises and gems you find within it and it’s just brilliant! 

The first thing that deserves a bit of a rave is the film’s complexity. You would think that it would begin with our heroes/victims establishing themselves as characters and heading off towards their fateful destination, thus setting the narrative in motion. However, this movie actually begins with what would normally be construed as the plot twist. 

We begin with our technicians chatting, grabbing coffee, and casually establishing the magnitude of the operation that they’re a part of. Significant plot points and historical points are dropped, creating scope and a sense of what’s going on and what’s about to come. Then it’s a quick cut to our heroes and the clichéd part of the movie begins with the teenage victim characters being established and the plot set in motion. 

From there, the film is very clichéd in practically every single aspect of the horror genre: we’ve got sudden appearances of people, the crazy man at the gas station, and the fun and harmless scenes of fun before night comes and changes the vibe of the trip. Even the teenagers themselves are clichéd: we’ve got the unlikely group of friends made up of the ‘whore’, the ‘virgin’, the ‘athlete’, the ‘academic’, and the ‘fool’, however it has to be said that those qualities do get amplified via conducting hands once they arrive at the cabin. 

As I mentioned before, this is more than just a metafictive horror movie that pays homage to the genre, it’s a comment on the quality of horror movies and how they differ in varying countries’ cinema. This is done in a very subtle way and I would encourage everyone to keep an eye out for it. Admittedly, it comes off as a bit of a wank with the final line on the subject being “you gotta go American”, but in context it still proves pretty funny and clever with all operations within Sweden, Germany, and other countries failing and America and Japan being the only ones still in the running for success. Again it’s subtle, but when you see it it’s very clever and brings that extra layer of freshness and meta to the movie. 

It’s Whedon and Goddard’s deliberate mixture of cliché and then a bigger, fourth dimensional story that makes this movie so good. 

However, it is not without its flaws. In my first viewing, I found the dialogue very fast-paced and discovered upon second viewing that I had missed quite a lot of vital clues and information regarding the operation’s history and purpose. So keep that in mind if you decide to watch this movie and don’t find it as brilliant as I say the first time. It’s a film that does improve with multiple viewings. 

Secondly, whilst the whole concept of the technicians and their operation is really clever and refreshing, during the climactic part of the movie there is a point where they sort of fall off the neat track and just cram in a scene that purely exists for the purpose of showing off every single monster Whedon and Goddard could come up with. The result is this cool, but flimsy gore fest that teeters on the line between necessary and unnecessary. 

Whilst the scene works very well to establish further scope of the operation and the intensity of it, its placement and orchestration just feels a little ad-lib or ham-fisted, literally thrown into the deep end of the movie on a whim. But it does still sort of work. 

Starring Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williamons, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, Amy Acker, Tim DeZarn, Cabin in the Woods is a fun and refreshingly meta horror movie for the 21^st century. Filled with violence, gore, suspense, clichés, horror, drama, comedy, and an entertaining cameo at the end, it’s a film that warrants a few viewings to appreciate the brilliance of it, but seriously it’s worth it!