Superior comedy horror movie. 85%

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2012)

If you're after a horror movie, this probably isn't for you. It's way too arch for that. The genre is mercilessly battered to a pulp in this movie. So, if you enjoyed movies like "Scream" or "Evil dead II", this will be just the ticket for you! Might I also recommend "In the mouth of madness" as a good example of a postmodern horror movie?
Anyway, seeing this movie's title might lead you to have certain expectations as to what it's like. These are met...but with a twist. Even the opening scene is a spanner in the works...people in lab coats or whatnot. So, basically, you get two different settings...the young adults in that cabin in the woods, and some mysterious people in a high tech facility who are in some way connected to their fates.
The movie does meet certain horror movie clichés...gore happens, as does a sex scene where you get to see boobies and everything!!
Anyway, where this movie sets itself apart from its brethren is the whole 'high tech facility' component to its story. The workers there function - you could say - as a Greek chorus on what transpires in that cabin...which is in the woods (for those who weren't concentrating!). Perhaps they could also be stand-ins for the kind of people who make horror movies...the ones parodied in this movie. In any case, they provide a meta-narrative for the genre as a whole...or a meta-explanation for the raison d'être of the world depicted in any such horror movie. If you think horror movies are just an excuse for the ritual sacrifice of pretty young things, well, this film has something to say on this.
If I do have some quibbles with this movie, they are minor...like the mysterious guy you see as the pretty young things leave in their van for that cabin...which is in the woods. He seems pretty redundant. There's also a scene which I think overplays the whole "high tech" aspect to the story...I'd like to pretend that the horror story could be real (!) but the bit with the eagle near the start of the movie just made me think that this was set in some alternative universe. Lastly, you see a name actor near the end of the movie. It's entirely self-conscious...the acting and the use of the actor.
As Joss Whedon is a major player in the making of this movie, you do expect a lot of liberties to be taken with genre forms. Fortunately he delivers. The dialogue and situations are frequently funny and the performances are engaging. And it is so whilst picking at the scab of the genre's conventions.
For some reason I thought that Fran Kranz had an Owen Wilson vibe to his look/performance. He plays the stoner "Marty". I like how his comments in the van at the start of the movie bookend with what happens at the end of the movie. Anna Hutchison (as "Jules") has a "That's just wrong!" scene...she's quite the foxey lady though!
I did get a laugh out of the comments concerning the outcome in Japan. My pop cultural references didn't extend to knowing the deal with the Sugar Plum Fairy. Must have missed that episode.
Anyway, I think this is a funny movie with repeat viewing potential. I missed the start of it and watched the start of the next session to catch up on it...some of it still made me laugh.