Movie Review: The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods's promotional tagline was "You think you know the story". The marketing did a brilliant job of deceiving the audience making this look like a run-of-the mill horror movie when in reality it's  the most original horror movie to come out in years. Without spoiling too much, The Cabin in the Woods is a unique, clever, and often hilarious deconstruction of the horror genre. The script from Firefly/Buffy the Vampire Slayer writer Joss Whedon and Cloverfield co-writer Drew Goddard (who also directed this) accurately lampoons just about every horror movie stereotype in the book with almost endless wit and plenty of great dialogue. They are quoted as to saying that this is a "loving hate letter" to the current state of the horror genre and after seeing it, I completely agree. This is essentially a giant middle finger being raised by Whedon and Gooddard showing that the current stereotypical horror mold needs to be broken for the genre to thrive again. What they did was make a movie that goes against the grain by satirizing the entire stereotypical formula with a slew of surprises that the audience doesn't see coming. Watching every twist and turn that happens to the characters is a whole lot of fun. It also helps that the actors are all fully aware of what type of movie this is and all nail their respective characters (Fran Kranz steals the show as megastoner Marty, I hope he gets more roles in the future because is just too good of an actor to go unnoticed in Hollywood). The Cabin in the Woods is not for everyone, but this is a must-see for horror-comedy fans or anyone else that is on the joke. You can't really go in-depth without spoiling the movie and trust me, the surprises are what makes this movie special. This is an incredibly refreshing movie that the modern horror genre needs to take notes from.

4/5 Stars