It’s telling how much people care
about a film when there are very few spoilers kicking around about it despite
its age. It’s entirely plausible for someone to be able to watch Psycho in 2014 and not know anything
about it apart from the shower scene; the consensus is that you should watch Psycho for yourself and enjoy it as it
is.
This rule seems to also apply to The Cabin in the Woods – you have try
quite hard to spoil this film for yourself, which I find comforting in a world
where films yet without scripts are picked over like so much carrion. All
everyone says about Cabin is that
it’s really good and whatever you’re expecting, it will not be that. And oh my,
they are so right.
The premise as shown in the
trailer doesn’t do it any favours – stereotypical college students escape to
isolation, but little do they know they are under surveillance by a strange and
shadowy organisation – so far, so ho hum, but the reviews and word of lightly
lipped mouth tell a very different story and it’s now been held up as a modern
horror classic, a title I think it deserves. It’s funny, dark and genuinely
scary in places, with an amazing plot I simply won’t talk about further.
 |
| Not pictured: any spoilers whatsoever |
So let’s talk about the cast
instead; I make it a rule of thumb to only watch films with at least one
Avenger in them, and Chris Hemsworth is enormous fun as ‘the sporty one’ with a
perfect life and even more perfect jaw line. Anna Hutchison plays up to her
role as ‘the slutty one’ with great aplomb and with just even knowing to stop
the film from becoming distractingly sexist. Jesse Williams as ‘the nerdy one’
doesn’t seem to have much to grasp on to apart from that his character occasionally
wears glasses, and as such he has the least interesting lines of the bunch. Kristen
Connolly as ‘the virgin one’ is sparky and level headed – perhaps too level headed, as she seems to face
down just about everything with a wide eyed stare; she’s no scream queen and
the role was begging for someone with a good set of lungs. Fran Kanz as ‘the
stoner one’ seemed to be the most obnoxious at first, but as the film continues
he gallops away with the best lines, the best reaction shots and ultimately the
best laughs. They’re an enjoyable lot, but Kanz steals the show from under
everyone else’s nose.
Cabin careers along at an amazing pace, going further and further
down the rabbit hole of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s minds and coming up with
a weird, gruesome and thoroughly entertaining hour and a half of good old
fashioned post modern horror. The film starts as it means to go on; a brooding,
gothic horror title card for Lionsgate snaps to a fun but innocuous office conversation
between Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins, with the film title screaming
over them in a very video nasty fashion. This slapping together of the everyday
lives of the employees and the abject horror the college students face works
brilliantly, the threat of not meeting your project deadline as real as the
threat in the woods.
Finally, it’s nice to see a modern
horror film rely on something other than shaky camerawork and mutilation to get
its jumps and scares. It never takes itself too seriously and as such it’s more
entertaining than disturbing. It won’t give you nightmares but it will make you
laugh, shriek and jump with great gusto, and what more can you want for a
casual movie night? Happy Hallowe’en!
