The Ingenuity of Modern Fantasy TV Writ Large...

Rating: 8/10 (2 April 2012)

'The Cabin In The Woods' in a way fulfils the promise that producer Joss Whedon implicitly made in the 1990s - that he would one day put on screen a film that rivalled 'Buffy' or 'Firefly' in originality and play.
The Cabin In The Woods.
Critics of our mainly capitalist Western lifestyle could observe self-defeating hallmarks of our society. Corporate moneymaking, fast food, franchise cinema and war. These things entice as well as repel us and are ripe for satire. Usually South Park can be relied upon to give implicit commentary in hilariously surreal and or scatological, movie-toned episodes and it is this idiom that Joss Whedon and Writer/Director Drew Goddard work to in The Cabin In the Woods. From the SAWesque posters advertising the feature to the first few minutes of the film, it seems we are in torture porn/ teen slasher territory. Fatherly figures banter by the water cooler in an office then we cut to a veritable Scooby Doo gang of college students assembling for a trip to the eponymous cabin. What becomes clear is that the patriarchal administrators are following the every move of the gang. From a creepy redneck gas station owner to ultimate terror at the hands of undead hillbillies, the entire night in the woods is conducted to collect sacrifices for some unnamed benefactor or entity. From the second the audience think it has watched a staged snuff movie created by a slick corporation for the entertainment of a blue chip client, we are again wrong footed. An apocalyptic modern myth unfolds, the implication being that every Jason, Black Lagoon creature, werewolf and Hills Have Eyes family are genetic mutations created to despatch youthful sacrifices. Their blood is then drained to some subterranean chamber. Survivors of the latest onslaught have almost been beaten by the corporation of power dressing acolytes. Like any office of weapons brokers or television execs in a reality show they are in permanent denial of their dirty deeds. There's even an office sweep stake among the remote torturers. Two of their latest victims escaping, there is, revealed in the industrial complex beneath the ramshackle cabin, a veritable giant vending machine of slashers, fiends and monsters criticise generally trending geekdom or the impotence of an original artistic idea once it becomes a franchise or action figure. Immolated child molester and murderer Freddy Krueger became a toy and children's' costume, lest we forget. With all its commentary and change of pace and audience roller-coaster reminiscent of 'From Dusk Til Dawn', 'The Cabin In The Woods' follows Kevin Smith's 'Red State' as being a genre film that refuses to play by genre rules and is ultimately more scary and unsettling in places than a by the numbers franchise movie. It is a classic worth seeing for its playing in the glossy arena of blockbuster horror - and is also possibly the finest Scooby Doo film never made.