Thursday, April 19, 2012

Cabin in the Woods review


This is one of those movies that's easy to write about because if I even think about diving into details about this movie, I'm spoiling it. Either way, I think I might accidentally spoil parts of this movie in this review so, if you want to go in completely cold, avert your eyes!

Cabin in the Woods is about a couple of college-aged friends who retreat to a cabin in the woods for the weekend. What can go wrong? You know this genre by now, lots can go wrong. But this film, written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, will show you just how far you can go with this sub-genre to the point where it's entirely flipped on its head. This isn't just a film, it's film criticism in narrative form. Fun? In some ways, yes, but it's not necessarily thrilling to watch.

In fact, I didn't really start appreciating the film until I started thinking about it and the different ways Whedon and Goddard went about this movie. They adhered completely to all the typical plot points of the cabin in the woods horror genre and that gave them the freedom to completely subvert the genre. The film is almost like that Fox special about ten years back where the magician revealed a bunch of magician's secrets. Except this time, it wasn't as infuriating and pointless.

So is this a good movie though? Well, it's great film criticism and it has some really fun twists towards the end where they really up the ante. It's a fun movie for people who love horror films and are knowledgeable of them. You should get a kick out of how they approach the genre. At times, though, it's a bit too tongue-in-cheek and meta for its own good. Still, this is definitely a movie worth seeing before you get swept up in summer movie season.

Grade: B

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