A Blend of “Evil Dead,” “The Truman Show” (1998), and “Arthur Christmas”…
Five college students head to a secluded cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway. Discovering a diary in the basement, they unwisely read aloud the sinister Latin scrawls within – and the horrors begin. That’s what happens, but the how and why are a different story altogether…
At first glance, it seems like we’ve seen this all before, and they’re trying to sell us stale goods. The dusty cabin surrounded by trees immediately evokes memories of the supernatural mayhem of “Evil Dead.” The five young people perfectly embody ancient archetypes: the athlete, the clown, the good guy, the decent girl, the promiscuous one. A gruff and uncouth gas station attendant gleefully sends the naive “lambs” to the “slaughterhouse” down a dark, winding country road. It’s like a “My First American Horror Movie” playset…
Of course, the film is much more complex than it appears. If you’ve seen the trailer (which you probably shouldn’t), you already know this. And if you haven’t, the names will tell you everything: Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997) and “Angel,” is the producer and one of the screenwriters. The director and other screenwriter is Whedon’s colleague from “Buffy” and “Angel,” Drew Goddard, who also worked on “Alias,” “Lost” (2004), and “Cloverfield” (2008). Both of them, together and separately, love to mess with audiences, shatter archetypes, and, to the delight of fans, playfully grind up old genres, producing something new, brilliant, and irreverent. That’s what they do in “The Cabin in the Woods,” a film that, due to MGM’s untimely bankruptcy, is being released by another studio about a year and a half late. Following the example of his peer, friend, and relative-in-law J.J. Abrams, Whedon has remained tight-lipped about his creation.
We suggest that those who dislike spoilers skip this part. “The Cabin in the Woods” is definitely a bloody affair. We will adhere to our self-imposed rule that not every description of what happens in the first twenty minutes of a film automatically constitutes a spoiler. Everyone happy? Let’s move on.
Meta-Horror Unveiled
The opening moments after the credits clearly hint that “The Cabin in the Woods” is a full-fledged meta-horror film, when blood-red engravings depicting various Old Testament abominations are suddenly replaced by a pleasant, multi-colored landscape with the inscription: “Enjoy the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.” The staccato of strings gives way to shots of two tired office workers (Bradley Whitford from “The West Wing” and the always-excellent Richard Jenkins) discussing professional topics at a coffee machine in a vast room suspiciously resembling one of Dr. Evil’s bases or a hall where accelerated chimpanzee evolution occurs due to someone’s negligence. What exactly is going on will become clear later, but the “key scenario” that Jenkins mentions significantly is clearly related to the trip of the aforementioned students, including Thor himself, a.k.a. Chris Hemsworth.
A Detective Story in Disguise
The plot of “The Cabin in the Woods” isn’t a WTF thriller; it’s more of an OMG detective story, where the mystery unfolds slowly and gradually. The worlds (don’t take this word literally) of the students and the office zombies intersect, or rather, the barriers between these worlds are first revealed and then disappear. All of this is mainly filmed with humor aimed at those who, upon seeing murders, don’t plunge into the depths of primal horror but begin to cheer approvingly. And yet, honestly, “The Cabin…” lacks the strong characters and touching serenity present in the recent meta-horror “Tucker & Dale vs Evil” (2010). Goddard and Whedon have dehumanized their main characters too successfully. Moreover, in terms of wit, “The Cabin in the Woods” is inferior not only to the classic of the subgenre, Wes Craven’s “Scream,” but also, for that matter, to his “New Nightmare.” The script has a certain attractive vitality (note the excellent gag with the phone and the unforgettable scene in which one of the students makes love to the head of a stuffed wolf), but the ending could have been more inventive. As it is, the idea is more lowered to generally accepted conventions than raised to a new level.
A Genre-Bending Finale
Despite all this, Goddard and Whedon still manage to turn almost all existing clichés inside out, and they do so with an enjoyment characteristic of potential box office hits. As a result, we have a surprisingly insane, blood-soaked, and very funny crescendo to the final scene, during which the authors managed to poke fun at almost every cliché in supernatural horror films. In a sense, it can be said that this ending not only completes “The Cabin in the Woods,” it crowns the genre as a whole. “The Expendables” (2010) did something similar with the “machine gun-toting tough guy” action genre. The only difference is that “The Expendables” took itself too seriously, which, for better or worse, cannot be said about “The Cabin in the Woods.”