Nice Idea that falls off a small ditch rather than a cliff at film's end

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2012)

A group of immature young adults acting just like horror film caricatures go off to spend the weekend in a cabin in the woods for some sex and partying, but hit a snag when they unwittingly awake a family of flesh eating zombies, all of this after getting a scary warning from crazy loner at a service station? C'mon, how can any girl really be that tarty? Or any guy really that big a sex mad jerk? Or someone be such an incoherent perpetually stoned misfit? Well in this film, all those questions are answered. This particular cabin in the woods is being manipulated by outside forces. Indeed, the manipulation began before they left home. A usually normal girl having chemicals added to her body to make her horny, etc etc. But to what end game? In the first part of its mission, the film delivers, as we see the skillful people running the cabin coming up with creative ways to get our poor caricatures to follow their script. I must say one character who doesn't work for me is the security guard who is questioning the ethics of what they are doing. There is clearly not a single person involved who thinks what they are doing is ethical, merely an organic necessity. But they've adjusted to this being part of their jobs and so try to have fun doing it.
Scenes such as the one where one of the directors laments to another that he "may never get to see a Mer-man," and where the entire room starts booing when our normal girl turned sex addict refuses to sleep with her boyfriend because they are outside and "it's chilly," are quite funny and echo the feelings of the audience. That's why these scenes work: they are playing the role of you: watching a horror movie and face palming at the victim's stupidity and ignorance, and kind of regretting they didn't get it worse than they did, or that the kill wasn't slightly more creative.
Then we get to the final act, and things get a little silly. All of these murders have been sacrifices made to keep an evil demon asleep who will tear the world open if he awakes. Our heroes get to the end and then learn they are in a no win situation, and so sit back and watch it burn. But then we have to see the beast wake up. Can't we just finish with our two heroes there awaiting the end, the ground rumbles, the camera shakes, fade to black... Just seeing that hand seemed to say they didn't understand the horror genre or why we watch these films quite as much as I thought. And the scenes in the bunker don't quite work for me either. They made something good and fun, when it could have been something great.
Apart from that, this is a well made, well acted film that is definitely worth a look. Now there is nudity and a mild sex scene,a lot of language and quite a bit of blood. Always mention that as I get a lot of people asking me. Quite good, should have been better.