The Cabin In The Woods Review

Five college students drive out for a vacation to a remote cabin in the woods, while unbeknownst to them, elsewhere in a sophisticated industrial facility, technicians keep an eye on the students with hidden cameras. Through the cabin's design, the use of sophisticated environmental controls and the release of mood-altering drugs into the air, the technicians manipulate the environment into one resembling a fairly common horror archetype.

The film is extremely self-reflexive, exploring and deconstructing the typical horror film by having the plot of the film itself, the college students travelling to a cabin in the woods, being a construction outside of their control. It also poses interesting questions on why audiences are so desensitised to the sex, blood and gore that is now so often seen in the cinemas. It's not all horror though, and comedy is brilliantly intertwined with all the heavy material, often from the nonchalant way in which several characters react to the horrible incidents that occur throughout the film.

Drew Goodard and Joss Whedon fans will appreciate many of the casting choices made in the film, as will as most horror genre fans when a famous face is introduced towards the end of the film. That being said most the college student’s characters are forgettable except for the innocent Dana (Kristen Connolly) and stoner Marty (Fran Kranz), but then again, maybe that's the point. Richard (Richard Jenkins) and Steve (Bradley Whitford), however, are the standouts of the film as the two technicians orchestrating most of the events occurring.

The major problem with the film is the viewers ability to maintain suspension of disbelief. Whether or not you like the film really depends on if you can handle a world that so off-handily introduces redneck torture zombies and ancient gods as almost common sense within the films reality. Furthermore, in parodying  the genre of itself, naturally every horror movie trope is used, and while some are done for laughs others, as the film highlights, have been done many times before and therefore the film doesn't really stand out all that much in the horror department.

Once the film decides to leave the cabin behind so to speak, it becomes extremely entertaining and something quite different, and while those who have difficulty with suspending their disbelief at the films ending, the build-up manages to be fast-paced, funny, and poignant all at once. It's the films strong mixture of laughs, mostly satire related, and unexpected twists in an otherwise by-the-numbers horror film that puts this slightly above the rest.

Rating: 3.5/5