The Cabin in the Woods Review

The Cabin in the Woods is a difficult film to review, not because its divisive, on the contrary its inarguably the best "horror" movie of the past 20 years or so. But it is a film with a lot of layers, layers which are best discovered in a theatre with as little known about it as possible. Avoid the internet, trailers or even water cooler discussions. Instead run to to your local theatre buy a ticket and enjoy what will undoubtedly be the most talked about movie of the year, just know its not what your expecting. Written by the venerable Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods takes an introspective look at the horror movie genre, breaking it apart and examining every cliche, stereotype, and template that has been used in every horror movie for the past 50 years.

Cabin in the Woods is bar-none the most intelligent horror movie ever made, even when you think you have it figured out it morphs into something even more magnificent and continues to dive deeper and deeper into the genre so many people love. If the movie has any fault is that it may completely turn the audience against the classic horror movie genre altogether. This movie breaks the genre by calling those movies out, from the classic Friday the 13th, to the gore-porn genre made popular by Saw, and even all those Syfy original's like Sharktopus. Whedon and director Goddard clearly love the genre but seem to have gotten fed up with its increasing predictability. Whedon especially takes full advantage of his trademark sense of humor and general snark and wit, which is on grandiose display here with great pitter patter dialogue and likable characters.

There will come a time during Cabin in the Woods where you'll wonder, "where are the scares ?" and "why am I laughing so hard ?". Cabin is so confident in its device (which I wont even hint at for fear of ruining anything this brilliant film achieves) that it sidesteps any notion of scaring the audience, that's not to say its slow and predictable its actually anything but. Instead Cabin opts to telegraph jumps scares and leave long tension rich buildups with no pay off. It's incredibly subversive and it wouldn't surprise me if it actually angered some people, for not just following the typical formula audiences have become so comfortable with. The slutty girl will die just as things begin to get "hot", the jock will go down in a brutishly heroic way and so on. Cabin plays against your expectations and twists them and turns them to fit its own ends.

The Cabin in the Woods is ferociously smart, deviously fun, and forces discussion. Its everything a good movie should be. Cabin is probably the most meta film ever made, the inane yet appropriate way to explain it is that "its a horror movie about horror movies about horror movies". There is no doubt by the time the credits role and you have reached the end of this expectation shattering ride and as you begin to lift your jaw up off the floor you will turn to the other members of the audience and bite your tongue to stop from screaming, "HOLY SHIT, when he..., and then they ...., but it was all ...,". Do Not under any circumstances miss this movie, The Cabin in the Woods has out-thought ever horror movie to become an all time classic.

(5 out of 5)