Review by Alyn Darnay
Directed by: Drew Goddard
Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford
Let’s start this review by saying “The Cabin In The Woods” is one of the best horror films to come around in the past few years, probably not since the original Scream (1996), and I became an instant fan. Which in itself is strange, made even stranger because it’s been sitting on MGM’s shelf for the past three years and for all anyone knew could have disappeared there forever. But, it finally comes out on Friday the 13th and it’s bound to become an instant classic. The audience I saw it with was a mix bag of ages and groups and I don’t think a single person disliked it. They laughed, screamed, and stared at the screen in disbelief. What more could you want in a film?
Here’s the story plain and simple, five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen and don’t stop. Why? What’s going on here? Will it ever stop? Will any survive? Typical huh? Not on your life, not this time, this one’s twisted and fun. If I tell you more it’ll subverted any of the expectations and surprises that accompany the film to such wicked effect. Suffice it to say, whatever you think this is about, surrender it as you enter the theater. And please, for your own sake and to insure that you’ll get maximum impact from the film, don’t watch the trailers or listen if someone wants to tell you about it.
Written by Joss Whedon & Drew Goddard, and directed with bravura style by Mr. Goddard, the movie is a strange and wonderful amalgam of genres. Here’s what they did to achieve it. They got a blender and put equal parts of Buffy, Angel, Lost, and Alias into it, because that’s pretty much what they’d been working on for several years, then they added the set from Evil Dead II, a lot of misdirecting off-the-wall twists, the requisite college students to torment, a pinch of sci-fi, some disgruntled employees, a little humor, and then they poured in the gore. Hit the button and they got an absolutely brilliant movie that renders all past and future examples of this genre nothing more than superfluous. It’s amusing, ingenious and unexpected.
I’m not a big horror genre fan, I was once, but frankly nowadays I just find the films repetitive and stale. However, this film changed that for me, it turns the form on its head and showed me how exciting and entertaining it can be in the hands of talented people with fresh ideas.
“The Cabin In The Woods” is a definite must-see for horror film fans and for the rest of us. So I’m telling you straight out, go see this movie!
Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Rated “R” – Strong, bloody horror violence and gore, language, drug use and some sexuality/nudity
