R, 1 hr. 35 min. Directed By:
Drew Goddard. Release Date:
Apr 13, 2012.
I’ve been anxious to see The Cabin in the Woods since I saw a write up about the SXSW Film
Festival on Fandango. I was intrigued to
see Joss Whedon’s mind at work in something a little closer to his Buffy roots, and that’s still my
favorite thing to come from Whedon’s mind to date. Frankly, when it comes to the vast expanse
that makes up the sci-fi/fantasy genre in all its variants, I don’t think there’s
anyone else alive who can work magic quite like he can… at least for a while.
For 90 minutes, Whedon’s mind created almost the
perfect hybrid. This isn’t quite horror,
although it certainly has elements of that.
It has elements of the suspense thriller, the teen movie, and the
comedy. Individually, each element is
well written and delivered. When they
merge together, I get a little uncomfortable with the idea of calling this a
horror movie. I’m a little more
comfortable viewing this as a horror-comedy, and in that, Cabin is VERY successful.
Humor is used throughout the film in an effort to break the tension, and
it’s used well.
But, at the end of the day, Whedon’s Mutant Enemy
production company is well within their comfort zones. Even some of the casting says volume, since
we see cast members pilfered from OTHER Mutant Enemy productions, and Whedon’s
proved a certain… willingness to recast folks as often as possible. I was actually surprised that none of the
cast from Firefly made an appearance,
but he did bring in folks from both Buffy
and Angel/Dollhouse. The story line borrows heavily
conceptually from Buffy story
lines: an agency that attempts to manage
the balance between the mortal coil and the supernatural world, a great
unspeakable evil (although Glory was much hotter than what we see of the evil
beneath the cabin). These are all some
of the elements that made Buffy and her crew such an amazing watch for 7 years,
and kept Angel and his constant whining alive in my heart for… well, at least
season one and then the final season.
There may not be anything original here from a story
perspective, but this is a supernatural thriller/horror movie that’s done very
well, and most of the sources of the borrowed material can’t make that claim. I can see why this has garnered so much
attention. A new bar may have been set
here. Certainly horror could use a bit
of bar raising. One really cool thing
was the “choose your own adventure” aspect to this… and I’m left wondering if
this would have benefitted from a Clue-like
production, where we see multiple versions of the scenes wherein these five
college kids meet their fates.
I have a few minor complaints, but they’re kind of
universal to the genre, so I wasn’t surprised to have them. Some of the acting was terrible. I didn’t particularly like Anna Hutchison in
her role as Jules. I liked even less
that these five kids managed to fit in to the standard multi-clique group that
rears its ugly head every so often since The
Breakfast Club. I would have liked
the group to be less polarized, since it’s pretty rare that this kind of group
exists in the real world. I also thought they leaned toward the ham-fisted with their sound effects and foreshadowing. Otherwise,
this was a TON of fun. I may have to see
it again.
