Rejuvenating spin on the horror genre. Funny, scary, gory and loads of FUN

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2012)

I went to a preview screening of this in London last night night.
Its one hell of a fun and radical ride. Notice IMDb has only a two sentence synopsis for this film? Its for good reason. The least you know about the plot the better. In fact don't even read reviews...wait, you can read my one though! Just know that this is a horror movie that is scary, funny (in tone with Evil Dead 2, Zombieland and Scream) and very gory with an outrageously inventive script that makes this a refreshing and rejuvenating take on films with suggestive mundane titles such as...well, The Cabin in the Woods.
Its not necessarily unique as all of its parts have been done before in past films but what is unique is how ingeniously it fuses those genres together. Even naming the different films its inspired from would be spoiling the fun.
The performances by the 5 stereotypical friends are very enjoyable. The comic relief hippie , the sex driven couple, the shy dude and the shy girl. What raises my eyebrow a bit is that the actors look older than the ages they are meant to play but these are experienced and mature actors and so they probably deliver better performances as 19/20-ish year old than most 20 year old actors would. Chris Hemsworth, for instance, is 29 and though he doesn't look like a 20 year old, he acts it and his charisma more than makes up for that optical failure.
There are a few surprises along the way including a nice cameo. Horror enthusiasts might also delight in picking up several horror references. You may or may not predict the ending, if you don't, good for you. To be honest the ending wasn't such a big revelation to me as it was intended to be but the roller-coaster journey ride made it all worthwhile.
Its the perfect film to see with a lively Friday/Saturday night audience from which you'll hear both laughter and girlie screams aplenty (at least that's what I got from my audience). But just go and have a real fun time with this however you choose to see it.