The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods, 2012, Lionsgate Films. Directed by Drew Goddard. Starring Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Fran Kanz, Anna Hutchison, Bradley Whitford.

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!