The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Directed by:
Drew Goddard

Written by:
Joss Whedon & Drew Goddard

Main Cast:
Kristin Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Bradley Whitford, Amy Acker, Tim De Zarn, and Richard Jenkins

The Plot:
Five college friends - modest good girl Dana (Connolly), nice guy Holden (Williams), boorish jock Curt (Hemsworth), newly blond Jules (Hutchinson), and philosophical stoner Marty (Kranz) - set out for a weekend getaway in the creaky, remote cabin of Curt's cousin, blissfully unaware that their every move is being monitored by a two men in business suits. What do they want, and how long before all hell, inevitably, breaks loose?

The Review:
The story of a group of nubile college friends who head up to the woods for some drunken partying, only to be faced with unforeseen danger, is one of the most tired and played-out in the book. So leave it to Joss Whedon and co. to throw caution in the wind and come up with one of the wildest cinematic rides in years. It's entertaining, imaginative, and seeks to change the rules of horror as we, in 2012, perceive them.

If 1996's Scream made audiences aware of slasher trappings, commenting upon them while they were happening, The Cabin in the Woods does something very similar, then pulls back the curtain even more. The screenplay, expertly weaving together innumerable layers is pretty genius in the way that it does not try to fool the viewer, or risk all of its goodwill on a cheap twist. Instead, it lays everything out by the five-minute mark and then gradually builds throughout the running time towards a climax that is truly insane, enough to turn the genre aficionados into a bunch of squealing children.

The ensemble cast is uniformly terrific, with Richard Jenkins and especially the hilarious Fran Kranz standing out. Nothing short of a love letter to our beloved genre, which has all too often been ridiculed for a lack of ideas and ambition, The Cabin in the Woods dares to break ground by making a case for horror's significance in cultures the world over. And on top of that, it's all in name of good fun.

**** out of ****