I was initially compelled to watch Joss Whedon’s “The Cabin in the Woods” by an inconsequential Reddit image post featuring a scene from the movie. I probably would have seen it at some point, as I was curious when what little news about it first appeared, even though I still knew very little about the actual movie to completely draw me in. On the one hand, it was co-written by Joss Whedon, a well known lover of movies and comics and other geek stuff, in addition to his track record of being an imaginative writer, however the vague trailers and few paragraph information articles about the movie gave little indication of the actual plotline. Soon the knowledge of (or lack thereof) the movie even existing faded from my mind.
But on one random day, a random image on the Internet brought me back to “The Cabin in the Woods”, and I’m delighted to say I now consider it one of my favorite movies, and one of the better movies in general to be released this year. I still went into the viewing not knowing much in the line of plotline and genre, however in some initial research I learned it contained both horror and science fiction elements (two kinds of movies I enjoy). Even the few reviews I read portrayed little of what happens in the movie, and suggested that seeing it would be all the more enjoyable if you went in relatively blindfolded like I did. I would like to recommend this as well to anyone (anyone? hello?) reading this review, and while I’ll try my best to keep it as spoiler-free as possible, if you plan on seeing “The Cabin in the Woods” anytime soon please tread lightly, if at all.
The movie begins like any of the campy, so crappy its good horror movie clichés that unfortunately overlay the truly excellent and unique films in the genre with their terribly produced masses, leaving them to be the poster-children of horror movies. There’s the usual group of replaceable, branded college students going away on a spring break trip to this mysterious cabin recently purchased by one of the characters apparent cousin. The early plotline follows this same generic, almost laughable template as the roles of the stupid blonde/whore, the jock/alpha male, the new guy/mandatory ethnic character, the comic relief/pothead (because our society labels them as one in the same), and the smart, nice girl that everyone is rooting for and usually survives the horrors that obviously await are introduced respectively.
Of course this cabin just happens to be in the middle of nowhere, “off the grid” as the template fool character explains from amongst his cloud of marijuana, and of course on their way there they meet a strange, ominous character that literally screams that this little getaway to this mysterious cabin just might be a bad idea, but college kids know everything (being one, I know) and they still blindly continue their ill-fated trip, because what could possibly happen? And this entire time I’m thinking in the back of my head that I would ultimately be disappointed by this film (and for one of the few times, Joss Whedon) and was tricked into watching the overused, predictable horror sequence that thrives on fake blood and lacks any character development or even common sense. However I held firm, slightly because of my unwavering faith in Joss Whedon’s creative ability but mainly because of the very, very first scene of the movie, which focused not on the group of future cadavers but on two vanilla business-men working for an unnamed corporation, watching and waiting through hidden cameras as the kids make their way to this cabin in the woods.
Then my excitement level doubles as the scene of the RV filled with horror movie fodder makes its way through a unsuspicious dark tunnel on the unsuspicious one way, single path to the cabin road, and the camera focuses on a bird that follows them across the giant chasm between the road before and after the tunnel, then unexpectedly (well expectedly if you’ve viewed the trailers) slamming into an invisible barrier as the kids obliviously drive by, trapping them inside. Then the fun really begins, when transitions between the now sexy party cabin, soon to be bloody murder cabin and the mysterious vanilla organization gradually feeds bits and pieces of information as to their apparent connection.
Now, as much as I want to discuss what happens afterwards, I will hold my tongue in order to save the awesome realization whoever may be reading this will go through during their own viewing of “The Cabin in the Woods”. I will say that the initial horror movie cliché is only the tip of the iceberg, and the horror genre soon morphs into more of a science fiction vibe, topped off by a scene that, as a monster movie enthusiast, gave me such an exuberant amount of glee that I had to re-watch it a couple more times after.
While the ending of the movie did leave a little to be desired, even though I thought it was the right way to do it, “The Cabin in the Woods” works as an excellent satire and voices the frustrations of many a horror movie aficionado on the state of the genre. There’s this irritatingly constant assembly line of completely oblivious groups of people that aggravatingly put themselves in the positions that we know will end up in their grisly and sometimes hilarious deaths, and this movie not only puts that into the spotlight, it does it even better than the uncountable SyFy-type movies do, even though that’s the entire point of those types of films. In fact, in this movie those doomed characters actually do gain some semblance of character development in their short time on screen than any of the others do in their movies movies, and then combines it with the excellently crafted correlation with the nameless corporation we see throughout the film. Of course, Joss Whedon incorporates his own dark humor and wit, and in combination with the buckets of blood spraying and splattering everywhere gave me an odd but satisfying combination of recoil and laughter as I viewed it.
“The Cabin in the Woods” is a must see for anyone who enjoys a good horror flick, and there are many shout-outs to the leaders in both the movies and other forms of horror pop culture. It’s surprising and refreshing, actually creating a sense of faith in a higher reason for why every year we see a new group of clichés getting dismembered on screen by some otherworldly creature. “Don’t go into the basement!” we’ll scream at the screen, but the character invariably does. “Stay together!” we’ll yell as the scared, irrational characters split up to cover more ground. All of the clichés are there, and it’s nice to see them in a different light, following the template that some one – or thing – created for a higher purpose, not just to watch five idiots panic and end up getting themselves killed in an outrageous fashion. But that can be fun sometimes too.
