Very, very entertaining old hokum which is more than a touch better than most

Rating: 7/10 (28 September 2012)

For once I'll keep this short. It's always very difficult to find a new angle to an old genre, but The Cabin In The Woods, pulls it off. OK, so at the end of the day it is lightweight, utterly illogical, full of plot holes and more than just old hokum - it is 24-carat old hokum - but what's wrong with that? You might ask why a highly sophisticated, modern organisation using the last state-of-the-art technology with, apparently, unlimited resources at its disposal would have provide such straightforward means to ensure its own destruction and that of the world. But if such things are important to you - and, of course, they are in another kind of film - The Cabin In The Woords isn't for you and you'd be advised to try something a great deal worthier. There's absolutely nothing deep about this film, and it does trade in clichés, but that is exactly the - very amusing - point. If you like being entertained and intrigued, this is a film for you. That it succeeds using material which in other hands would result in a run-of-the-mill gore-fest garbage is testament to the skill and wit of its writers and director. It attempts a high-wire act and wins hands down. I won't say more than that. I do, and I enjoyed it a great deal, even though I don't like slasher movies, find that a great deal of sci-fi falls flat at the end of the day and haven't seen an original horror film for quite a few years. I'll say it again: if you like being entertained and intrigued, this is the film for you.