An absolute hoot

Rating: 9/10 (14 April 2012)

Two girls and three guys go off in a van to spend a weekend in a remote cabin in the woods. After an encounter with a sinister man at a filling station, they eventually arrive at the run down cabin, and start behaving in the ways in which young people in remote cabins are accustomed to behave. But what are those men in white coats up to?
Drew Goddard's first movie as director (co-written with Joss Whedon) tells us, before we sit down to watch it, that it is playing with a sub-genre of the horror movie, and that it wants us to know this right from the start. And what follows is as playful as the title. We get our fair share of cabin in the woods shenanigans, but we get a heck of a lot else, too. And I'm not going to say anything about them, because this movie has surprises up its sleeve.
It also has a very good script, with some laugh out loud moments. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.