I've
said it before, I'm not really much of a horror movie fan. However I have had
lots of people tell me how different and unique The Cabin in the Woods (2012) is and that I should see it. I
begrudgingly saw it last weekend and I have to admit, I'm really impressed!
Five
college students head off for a weekend in a secluded cabin in the woods. They
are typical horror movie characters; Curt the hero (Chris Hemsworth), Dana the
good girl (Kristen Connolly), Jules the bad girl (Anna Hutchison), the
comic relief pothead (Fran Kranz), and
Holden the mature and thoughtful kid (Jesse Williams). When the cellar door
flings itself open, they of course go down to investigate. They find an odd
assortment of relics and knick-knacks, but when Dana reads from a book she
finds there, she awakens a family of deadly killer zombies. There's far more
going on than meets the eye as the five campers are all under observation by a
pair of techno geeks (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) in a secret
underground laboratory. The five college kids struggle to survive while
everything around them is being manipulated by the mysterious lab.
The Cabin in the
Woods
starts out like a whole lot of other horror movies. In fact it really looks
like a run-of-the-mill slasher movie that any horror movie fan could probably
recite with no difficulty. Five very predictable characters doing exactly what
you would expect them to do: they go out to the middle of nowhere, awaken a
monster of some kind, they start getting picked off one by one, they use lines
that every character in every horror flick uses, etc. But rather than using
these common elements as the main story, They are used to get us to think about
horror movies. It's a meta-horror movie; I don't think that has ever been done
before.
The
movie gets us to think about the "rules" of a slasher movie. If
something is chasing you, you should split up; if a creepy old man warns you
not to go somewhere, make fun of him and go there anyway; if you hear a strange
sound outside, have sex. It's basically a commentary on free will. Do horror
character make the choices they so often do because of the requirements of the
genre or because of their own decisions? And since they are instruments of
their creator, how much free will can the filmmakers exercise? The Cabin in the Woods takes horror
movies in a whole new direction while still including the elements that make
horror/slasher movies so endearing to their fans. As a result, it acts as a
criticism of horror movies and almost like a puzzle for horror fans to solve.
There
are enough scares and gore strewn throughout the movie to appease hardcore fans
of horror movies, but those really are not the point of The Cabin in the Woods. It's the creative meta-criticism of horror
movies that makes the movie so unique. The traditional horror movie story is
basically over by the end of the first act, then the movie shifts into
something very different and bigger than the predictable horror movie.
I
really appreciated the special effects. There were lots of practical effects;
monster suits and make up as well as actual physical props rather than
digitally rendered sets. Any time a puppet or costume could be used, it was,
and CGI was resorted to only when necessary. The CGI creatures were usually
well animated, and only occasionally looked like obvious digital imagery.
I
wasn't all that excited to see The Cabin
in the Woods, but I'm glad I did. It used clichés, writing tropes, and
archetypal characters as a means of telling a very unique story that analyzes
and critiques the horror genre. The end result is something that turns the
genre on its head while still maintaining genre traditionalism. I don't really
like horror movies that much and I thought this was a highly interesting piece
of cinema. You don't have to be a veteran horror fan to appreciate this film,
but you're going to love watching for references to classic horror movies and horror
movie directors. It's just so fascinating to watch. That said, I think The Cabin in the Woods is worth owning
because it's a "Meta-horror" movie and the only one of its kind to
date.
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