Rating: 4 out of 5.

2011 – Joss Whedon

Viewed May 1, 2020

A send-up of Horror movie tropes that packs its own wallop

Cabin in the Woods is wonderful because it somehow manages to have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand, it is a hilarious satire of the traditional horror movie tropes we all know and love; on the other, making the viewers and ultimately the characters aware of their plight makes those portrayals more sympathetic and makes their actions carry weight. The horror details of the film are straight out of crappy horror movies (which are great, don’t get me wrong) and yet The Cabin in the Woods ultimately transcends those origins through its clever self-awareness.

The cast is perfect and the script works because it manages to balance the motives of every side. At multiple points I rooted for the college kids to live, then to die so that humanity could carry on, then for the survival of the control group, and finally accepting that the end times were near. The film juggles high emotion with some genuine jump scares, ending with an all-out horror brawl that I kept pausing because there was so much detail to take in. Here’s to never running into a mermaid!