The Cabin in the Woods

I don't remember the last time a horror movie excited me the way that The Cabin in the Woods did. Surprisingly, it wasn't exactly the tension or terror that had me excited. (To be quite honest, I did not find the movie scary in the slightest.) It was the ideas the movie held, as well as the script, which manages to be quite smart and savagely funny at times. The collaborative team of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) have made an ingenious little movie that's just a whole lot of fun to watch.

If you've seen the ad campaign or heard the pre-release hype, then you already know that the movie takes the standard slasher movie formula that's pretty much written in stone, and then turns it on its head. This is a clever movie that's full of surprises, so I say the less you know walking in, the better. Here's what you do need to know, however - The movie starts out the same way many films of its type do, as a group of college kids load up a party van, and head out to the woods for a weekend in the cabin that's owned by one of the kids' cousins. The movie has a lot of fun setting up, and gently skewering, the expected types these groups of thrill seekers are always made up of. There's the "virgin" good girl, Dana (Kristen Connolly), there's the jock Curt (Chris Hemsworth) and his slutty blonde girlfriend, Jules (Anna Hutchison), there's the quiet smart one named Holden (Jesse Williams), and the constantly-baked and comic relief stoner, Marty (Fran Kranz).

Right off the bat, we know there's more to this than meets the eye. The dialogue the teens are speaking is a little fresher, even wittier, than we expect. And when they make the inevitable stop at the dusty old gas station that looks like it hasn't been cleaned since the 1940s, and is manned by one solitary scary old redneck, there's something a little bit off about everything. That's when we notice that there's someone up on the roof of the gas station - Someone who is watching the kids, and shouldn't be there. There are actually people watching the kids the entire time they make their way to the cabin, and even after they arrive. But they're not ominous people. They're typical, white collar workers played by actors like Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, who have coffee breaks, and talk about their problems at home as they constantly watch the kids on dozens of monitors in what looks like a typical office control center. We're intrigued, and the movie builds from there.

But how much to reveal in this review? I have to be careful here. The cabin that the kids plan to spend the weekend at is a strange place. One of the rooms has a two-way mirror, there are creepy paintings on the walls, and the cellar door has a habit of opening by itself. ("Maybe the wind blew it open", one of them helpfully suggests.) What they discover in the cellar is a collection of twisted history tied to the house's past. What they discover from that point on I will leave you to discover for yourself. Once again, I feel the need to stress that the less you know about The Cabin in the Woods walking in, the more you will enjoy it. I'm also pleased to report that even if you think you've figured out the movie, there are still a couple surprises left to be had. Fortunately, figuring the movie out is only part of the fun.

The real fun comes from the script, and how it constantly plays with our expectations, and gradually grows into something much bigger than I imagined. In a strange way, the movie reminded me of The Truman Show, that 1998 film with Jim Carrey as a man who learned he had no control over his own life. Just like in that film, the kids here have to decide whether they will act like they are expected to (like the brainless dolts who usually inhabit horror films, who like to do things like split up at the least opportune time), or if they will be in control of their own fates. It's a great idea, and the movie uses it well. There's also quite a lot of humor to be found here, much of it fortunately is actually funny. This will likely remind viewers of The Evil Dead, or maybe more recent genre films like Zombieland and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Although, those last two films came across as comedies with horror elements. This is a horror movie that's smart enough not to take itself seriously.

I can imagine Whedon and Goddard chuckling wildly to themselves as they wrote this script. The movie has so much fun taking conventions and running with them that it's quite infectious on the audience. This is a perfect "midnight movie", where the ideal audience is a theater packed full of horror geeks. As the numerous ideas and inventions fly out of the story, we're impressed, even if not all of them are explored as much as we'd like them to be. The Cabin in the Woods is not a perfect movie, but it's so much fun, I can't picture anyone caring all that much about the faults. Most importantly, this is a smart movie that knows how to toy with its audience and keep them guessing. It plays fair with its puzzles, and never once comes across as being a cheat.

Still, my best advice should you see this movie is don't try to figure it out yourself. Just let it play out, and let it surprise you. One of the big reasons why it works is that it actually manages to do just that. An even bigger, and more pleasant, surprise is how enjoyable, smart, funny, and well thought out it is.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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