The Cabin in the Woods

Director: Drew Goddard (2011)
Starring: Thor, Kristen Connolly, Fran Kanz, Anna Hutchinson
Find it: IMDB

Not only is The Emperor wearing no clothes, but in the case of The Cabin In The Woods, certain circles (all of them) are holding his flabby cock and man-boobs high, proclaiming them to be detail on Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat. Make no mistake, The Cabin In The Woods is rather good. But it is not groundbreaking and nor is it a game changer. It's a Scream film with more wit and ambition, but a Scream film nonetheless.

For its action, script, direction and insane third act, I give The Cabin In The Woods the following score. This is not a bad review. The Cabin In The Woods is a lot of fun. 

But it is also very flawed and a victim of its own hype. Every review out there will tell you to go in un-spoiled and not to read any more reviews. I did just that, as much as I could. But those reviews effectively spoiled The Cabin In The Woods in a sense far more literal than my knowing what happens. I went in expecting to see something I'd not seen before. Instead I saw a mildly predictable sci-fi Scream movie.
Written by Joss Whedon (and director Drew Goddard), the script sparkles with the same humour and pathos that made Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly so successful. Fans of Whedon will love it. The characters here aren't so three dimensional - and in the case of the stoner arsehole (a rubbish Xander on weed), they're downright annoying - but they do the job. It's probably the point, but they feel like cardboard cut-outs. As soon as Fran Kanz arrived on the scene with an enormous bong, I knew that he and I would not get along well. He and his college friends bundle into a van and travel to the titular cabin in the woods. Spoilers ensue.

Once there, they discover a creepy ******* in which they find a number of ********, each of which represents a different ******. They choose a ******* from a ****, which unleashes a ****** of *******.  But it's not quite as simple as that, for the ******* and the kids' very lives are all part of an age-old ****** designed to prevent *** *** of *** *****. As they are knocked off, one by one, the ****** ******* is revealed. The ******* is pulled **** completely as **** and ***** enter the ***** of the ******** and all **** breaks loose. If you were running an ********** ********* of ********, why would you create a ****** to free them all at once? That's some remarkably bad design-work, there. It's by far the movie's most entertaining part though. There are ****** and ******* and *********** and ******. At one point, a man gets impaled on a unicorn. Thor ******* into an ********* ****, which provides one of the film's best moments. ******** ****** shows up at the end too.
Cabin In The Woods is a lot of fun. But there's always that feeling it could have been something more; that it could have transcended the genre rather than commenting upon it whilst snuggling comfortably within its confines. I enjoyed Cabin In The Woods. But probably not as much as I was supposed to; sorry.