Mostly great

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2012)

The short: B grade with A grade production; different; great writing; lacklustre ending (you'll see what I mean).
The long: Starts great, very inventive, funny etc. Some plot holes here and there, but they're more than made up for with the writing. A very different take on the horror genre that parodies itself as much as it tells a (semi) serious story.
The direction is excellent. I don't know if that's the work of the director (never heard of him before) or Joss Wheedon (overrated), but, it's done very well. For the most part. I'll get to that later.
Starts off with some young (although not overly hot, unfortunately) young-uns off into the wilderness for some weekend away. The "horror" build-up is done very well. Great direction. Great jokes. Usual clichés etc, but done very well, and lightheartedly, which works so well that you don't really notice them. It's also got a seemingly bizarre subplot spliced into it, so it keeps you guessing for a while.
The first real let-down is the choice of baddies. Although the idea is handled very well, they really fail to create any tension, which drags the film down significantly. The parody of horror films is excellent. Because of the way the writer is revealing bits and pieces here and there, you know that something is afoot, and the zombies (I know, I spoiled it) just don't work well. I'm not sure what would have worked better, but it's not scary, which unfortunately serves to let the film down. The writer (director and Wheedon) are treading the line between the story and their upcoming twists, but they didn't put enough into the horror part of it. You start to see the first signs of the B gradiness (of the story) at this point. I figured out what was going on about 2/3 of the way in, which wasn't too hard, but there's enough interesting twists to keep you entertained nevertheless.
The ending though? It just fails to gain the tension it should have had. It's not that it's overly different from the rest of the film in tone, but that's the problem. It should have really kicked into high-gear horror mode at this point, but it stays kind of casual and flat. They really needed to hype up the scare factor and the mood, but it just kind of sails along a bit too casually.
Different film, well made, great writing, 7 out of 10.