Don't go down those stairs!

Rating: 8/10 (12 April 2012)

You don't see many movies that combine horror and comedy, at least not successfully. The last one to really pull that off was probably Scream. There have been some films in the genre like Shaun of the Dead and Slither, but those focused more on the comedy and were not really scary. The Cabin in the Woods is a new film which has some legitimate scares and also keeps the audience laughing at the same time.
The film has a familiar setup of 5 young, good-looking people staying overnight at a remote cabin in the woods. They're even the stereotypical characters you'd expect to see in a horror film - a jock, a shy guy, a stoner for comic relief, etc. But what's different is that the group is actually being watched the whole time. They're not being watched by some serial killer in the woods or anything like that, but rather via surveillance cameras by an entire company. We learn this early in the film so I'm not giving anything away here. The question that lingers through the film is why are they being watched... is this some sort of test? Are they part of some crazy reality show? Things begin to happen to the group that are straight out of typical horror films. So you also wonder why the people watching them are so okay with what's happening to them. In fact, they have certain control over the situation and are even able to make their own adjustments.
That's basically what keeps you so interested in the ongoings of the film. Instead of just watching these kids try to avoid being killed like any other slasher film, you're watching these other people watching the same thing as you are and wondering what they might do next as well. Just like Scream, The Cabin in the Woods takes the horror genre and tries to re-invent it by doing something completely different. Both films show us what we've seen so many times before with a new perspective. In a way, it's like they're addressing the tired clichés of these films and showing that you can put a fresh spin on them.
The one thing I don't get is why the early buzz on this movie keeps implying there are some big twists in it. Like I said, we know the whole time that they're being watched and that those watching them have some control over the situation. There's no big revelation at the end that would have fooled you or contradicted what you thought was taking place; that's what's necessary to be considered a "twist". But I will say that the movie is well worth seeing, especially for the final 20 minutes alone which will blow some people's minds. It's pretty much a horror fan's dream come true as far as the amount of action and monstrous visuals we're bombarded with. In fact, the end made me wish the film had used something better than what they did use to scare the kids with through most of it. You realize the filmmakers could have taken a much more creative route than what they had the kids running from. That being said, check this out if you're looking for a good horror film that breaks from the norm.