A comprehensive shocker

Rating: Null/10 (13 April 2012)

In The Cabin in the Woods, five college types and their RV visit a remote cabin for a vacation of freedom and relaxation. They are stock characters: Jules (Anna Hutchinson) the promiscuous coed; Kurt (Chris Hemsworth), the athlete; Marty (an outstanding Fran Kranz), the stoner; and Dana (Kristen Connolly), the good girl. After Dana reads an old diary, the red-neck Zombies descend and with them the clichés.
Because you've seen The Friday the 13th franchise and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you might think you know what happens in this parody of the horror genre, but you really don't. Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon test your knowledge of the classic tropes and twist enough to create almost a sub-genre—the intelligent spoof that can satisfy a geek's desire to ferret out the most arcane allusions and the regular film goer who likes to enjoy a good scare without deconstructing it.
Starting out in Deliverance country as they gas up and get verbally abused by tobacco-spitting gas-station owner, Mordecai (Tim De Zarn as a terrifically stereotyped local), when they get to the abandoned cabin the zombies, et al., descend. If the film had held off the big twist till later, I would have been happier to be scared a few more minutes. But, then, we can enjoy the spoof from early on.
Beyond this point, I can only recommend the film because further analysis would disclose too many plot twists. Let's just say, the film ingeniously allows us to be scared while its tongue is firmly planted in it cheek (think Scream). The denouement, with a surprise visit from a horror movie icon, is as absurd as anything previously if not more so. Yet, it seems a right conclusion as it doubles back to first images and explains its bloodbath.
By the way, that conclusion is an amalgam of the prominent elements of the genre, masterfully satirized, and fused in mirth-inducing mayhem.