Cabin in the Woods, that is where we are...

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2012)

The Cabin in the Woods is never quite what it seems, which is precisely, exactly what you want a suspense-horror movie to be. You don't show the slashing! You don't show the thing that's coming at you! You hide things in shadows, under layers, beneath covers, physically and, more importantly, psychologically. Consequently, the movie messes with your mind, annihilates any preconceived notions you may have about the genre, and the invites a cataclysm of morbid monstrosities into your living room. It's an honest-to-goodness scary movie.
Cowritten by Joss Whedon, the movie follows a pretty standard premise: a group of five stereotypes journey to a remote cabin for the weekend, and bad things happen when they venture into the basement on a dare and read from an ancient tome. Now, if you're not in on the joke - that is, no one's spoiled it for you - you're probably nodding right now in recognition. This is what happens in these movies. This is not new. To add to that, your characters are straight out of central casting: a jock, a pretty girl, a wallflower, a stoner, and a smart dude. It seems too trite to be true, and it most certainly is.
The movie intentionally deals in tropes from all kinds of scary movies. Zombies. Zombie families. Ghosts, blobs, redneck hillbillies with chainsaws. Cave-ins. By now, you're reading this and, still naive to the actual plot, are starting to catch on. You see, this is what the Scream movies should have been. You remember those, right? They loudly and proudly proclaimed they were "in on the joke," but with every known horror-movie rule they explained to a knowing audience, the characters in that movie broke another one. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But not here, oh no. Our characters are never in control of anything. They aren't wiseasses; they're just caricatures, symbols of certain archetypes. They make their choices and deal with the consequences. If a game is being played, it's not rigged in their favor; it may not, in fact, be really rigged at all.
It isn't long into the movie that we learn the cause of our heroes' distress. It would be unfair to detail it here, but let's just say that others can see every move they make and that there is apparently plenty more at stake than the lives of five measly young adults.
In addition to the thrills that the movie offers, there's a great contrast between what the characters experience (as mere victims) and what goes on behind the curtain. When the audience realizes this, the movie...well, it's a whole new movie. Suddenly it's not about the fate of those five, it's about a heck of a lot more than that. Or less than that, if one doesn't buy the given premise at that turning point.
There are few recognizable names in the cast. Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, and even Sigourney Weaver show up. They're not the focus here. What will be recognizable are the monsters, the breadth of which cannot be overstated. The action at its best is so frantic it might take a DVD pause to spot a particular baddie. There's mayhem, there's a lot of bloodletting, there's gore, and there's a visceral sense of satisfaction that cannot be simply slapped together by amateurs playing movie makers.
For me, Cabin in the Woods was terrifying, and in the gleeful, do-it- again way. I don't think it means to be realistic, even in its created environment. It's scary in the jolts and the surprises and the smack- you-in-the-face action. Does it seem like I'm gushing too much? Not half as much as blood gushes in the movie. Okay, that was a cheap shot, but it was fun to type. This is an essential scary movie.