The Cabin in the Woods

Rating: ****

The set-up is simple: five friends go out to a remote cabin to enjoy some drinking, debauchery and other wholesome activities. It’s the conceit that’s launched a million horror movies, and director Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon know it. Five friends go out into the woods, but not all of them are coming home, the question is who dies first and how?

But wait, obviously it’s more complicated than that. The key to The Cabin in the Woods is to go in as pure as possible. After seeing the press screening, I watched the ads on TV and have been kind of surprised by how much is hinted at, or outright given away. Needless to say, there’s something more afoot to the story then friends in the woods being pestered by some demonic undead redneck family. So what’s going on? Let’s just say that there’s some people highly invested in watching these young folks die.

In the opening scenes, we meet our motley crew. There’s alpha jock Curt (Chris Hemsworth), his girlfriend Jules (Anna Hutchison), the slightly nerdish but still kind of hunky Holden (Jesse Williams), the shy but pretty Dana (Kristen Connolly), and resident stoner Marty (Fran Kranz). They load into a Winnebago and head for a road so far off the map it’s not worthy of global positioning. When they get to the “rustic” cabin, they notice a few oddities, like paintings of human sacrifice and how two of the bedrooms are connected with one-way glass, but the latter discovery of a basement filled with potential horrors and sideshow oddities seals their doom, whatever doom they might choose.

Like Scream or New Nightmare before it, The Cabin in the Woods seeks to turn the genre on its head. Although that comparison leans more to the later than the former, as Scream had fun turning the conventions on their head, while Cabin, like Nightmare, dares to ponder where are horrors come from, and how we can beat them. It’s not so much about young people dying in horrible ways, but the implications there-in. The grander meaning. What is the communal experience of seeing a horror movie all about? Is it about engaging our more primal instincts, and to what degree?

Make no mistake, this is a horror movie for horror movie fans, by horror movie fans, and because of that I’m not sure how “commercial” Cabin will be. But having said that, this is a highly impressive debut for Goddard, who’s cut his teeth as a writer studying under two of the best mass-appeal nerdy filmmakers in the business: Whedon and J.J. Abrams. As a script, this is right in Whedon’s ball park with lots of scares and humour and Whedon-speak. Regular Whedon players like Kranz (Dollhouse), Amy Acker (Angel) and Tom Lenk (Buffy) also have roles.

Most importantly though, the characters feel very fleshed out. They’re living, breathing people, and that’s despite the fact that they are built in archetypes filling a specific purpose in the script. Some of that is owned by the actors. Pre-Thor Hemsworth shows off a more laidback vibe complete with letterman’s jacket, and it suits him, Kranz does stoner right and becomes the unlikely hero when another medical benefit of pot is demonstrated, and the rest of the young cast, who are unknowns for the most part, are likeable and engaging. But the real stars of this film are Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins. Unlikely as it may be that two guys over the age of 50 are the central figures in a youth-oriented horror movie, they just may be the heart and soul of the story; a kind of Statler and Waldorf offering commentary and context through the main story.

But if for no other reason, The Cabin in the Woods is worth seeing because it provides a nice break from current trends in horror cinema: it’s not a remake, it’s not a splatter-filled torture porn, and there’s not a single instance of “found footage.” It’s solid filmmaking. The cinematography is great, dark and moody when it needs to be, but it can also be warm and fun. (Thankfully, someone smart along the way decided that 3-D was not an option.) The creature effects are fantastic, the script is great, and the cast is phenomenal. It’s a rewarding film, but again, I think only a few will reap it to maximum effect.