Cabin in the Woods

Sick of generic horror movies? The ones where every good scene is shown on the previews? The ones where you can see every twist coming a mile away? Then Cabin in the Woods is the horror movie for you, breaking all of those common horror stereotypes while taking the viewer on a cinematic rollercoaster from beginning to end. Just when you think you've seen all the twists, one will blindside you like the last drop of a ride.

Cabin in the Woods starts out in a pretty routine manner. 5 friends go up to a cabin in the woods and begin to become attacked by creatures. The group of friends couldn't be any more common either; the slut (Anna Hutchison), the virgin (Kristen Connolly), the jock (Chris Hemsworth), the stoner (Fran Kranz), and the scholar (Jesse Williams). So you think you know where things are going, but then another twist is added from early on. Two men working in some top secret organization (Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins) are monitoring and even controlling all of the groups' every move. Why they are doing this and how they are doing this are just some of the questions that Cabin in the Woods slowly begins to answer as the movie progresses. This is just one of the highlights of the movie; you don't see where it's coming despite having a ton of intrigue in knowing where it will end up.

Though you could argue that the whole "being watched and controlled" aspect has been done in movies like Stranger than Fiction and Truman Show, Cabin in the Woods takes these elements and mixes them in with many others, resulting in something that feels oddly original despite being advertised as the average horror movie from the previews. The organization part of the story always has something hillarious going on, often resulting in pure terror on the teenagers' end, to pure comedy on what is going on with all of the scientists. It's rare in a movie to scare you and then make you laugh like Hell 2 seconds after.

The special effects were also quite noteworthy in this one. Despite the fact that the teenagers look and speak like teenagers in this current decade, something about the visuals in this movie feel oddly reminscient of the 80's/90's....but in a good way. All of the monsters (and trust...there are many, ranging from killer robots, giant spiders, snakes, mermen, zombies, and killer redneck hillbilly zombies which are quite different mind you) don't feel like CGI overload. It actually reminded me of the good old days where people used costumes and makeup to get that more authentic feel for the creatures in horror movies. And watching a giant merman onscreen without that authentic and realistic feeling would just be so wrong.

The performances are also pretty stable as well. There really isn't a weak link among the group (which is a rarity) and there also seems to be a natural chemistry that is present amongst these people (which is a triple rarity). Most noteworthy being Kranz as Marty the stoner and Kristen Connolly as Dana the final girl. Who would have ever imagined a movie about killer redneck zombies praying on the living as coming across so hillarious, authentic, and just flat out fun?

4/4