This Is Bad Satire

Rating: 1/10 (30 December 2018)

Remember that annoying kid that you used to go to school with? That used to pitch you story ideas that had been done a billion times before, with nothing new or interesting or thought provoking to say at all, but the kid sold them like they were the most brilliant piece of art anyone at school had ever thought up? Cabin in the Woods is that kid. It's a lazy, unimaginative, pathetic attempt at a satire that came out 20 years too late and doesn't even understand the genre that it's satirizing. It's a bad joke that's been told a million times before; it was probably funny when it was originally told, but after it's been spread around numerous times, it's completely lost all appeal.
Cabin in the Woods is about the formulaic nature of bad Horror movies and how they'll never change because audiences demand more of the same. The problem? Nearly all of these are issues and genre conventions were mostly done away with over 20 years ago (Though, with the success of the abysmal Halloween 2018, perhaps they'll make a comeback.) They've been teased over and over and over again in countless Horror films since then, from Scream to Urban Legend to The Faculty to Jennifer's Body. The difference is that all of those films had something to say in their exploration of those themes beyond "Hey, Horror audiences eat up derivative crap!" Yes, we know Horror audiences eat up derivative crap, why don't you actually go somewhere with it? Why don't you actually make your audience think about something after the film is over, why don't you enlighten them on something they haven't reflected very deeply on? If you do choose to watch this film, you'll be treated to about 500 variations of this same joke told repeatedly. How challenging. How bold.
That's okay, though. If you can't actually write something intelligent or meaningful yourself, you can always lean on misplaced nostalgia to create charm artificially. Man, does Cabin in the Woods lean on that nostalgia card. Easter egg after Easter egg after Easter egg is thrown at the audience in attempt to get cheap smiles and create an "old school Horror feel" to appeal to genre fans. This pathetic pandering can be seen a mile away and provides nothing of substance to the film beyond stuffing it with more and more things that it doesn't actually need. Make no mistake, despite its relatively short runtime, Cabin in the Woods feels agonizingly long.
God, what else is there to talk about? I suppose there's that ending. That horrible, nonsensical, tonal disaster of an ending that immediately wants us to take the film seriously after its presented itself as a massive joke for 1 hour and 20 minutes. These characters are presented as obnoxious, one-note caricatures for the entirety of the film because "lol irony" and then I'm supposed to be invested when it's revealed their lives are being controlled. No. I'm sorry, Joss Whedon, but no. You can't play these characters as complete jokes your entire film, give nothing of substance to a single one of them and then go for dramatic at the very end when you have no cards left to play. You did not build up to this, you did not develop to this, YOU DON'T GET TO DO THIS.
Lets talk about that ending for a bit. Who in God's name would be stupid enough to doom the entire human race over a single person who you don't even particularly like? (Who is going to die anyway, regardless of what you decide to do.) I don't care if the film is a critique, I don't care if the characters are supposed to be stupid, I don't care if this is "satire." Even when you're dealing with unintelligent characters in a satire those characters still need to have some kind of reasoning behind their actions. Even if that reasoning is deeply flawed and makes no sense, there has to be some kind of thought process and rationale behind their decisions. There is no reasoning or logic behind Dana's decision beyond it needing to happen so that the film's contrived commentary can get to its point. And no, that writing isn't clever because it's "making fun of contrived Horror movies." If satire is just repeating genre cliches and winking at the audience rather than subverting them in any interesting or thoughtful way, that is bad satire. I will say, however, that if there's one thing I like about the ending, it's that it finally gives me a break after having to sit through Joss Whedon drag this crap through 1 hour and 35 minutes as slowly as possible.
If this lazy, cheap, unfunny and uninventive schlock is what passes for clever and witty "satire" these days, it's almost no wonder that genuinely thought provoking and insightful satirical works like Adam Wingard's Death Note or Karyn Kusama's Jennifer's Body go underappreciated. Cabin in the Woods is a Horror satire that knows almost nothing about Horror or satire and literally asks its audience nothing.