The Cabin In The Woods
Drew Goddard
The story: Five college students (Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz and Jesse Williams) head to a remote cabin for a getaway. It seems like the cliched set-up for a slasher flick but it becomes apparent that there are lab technicians (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) pulling the strings. Is anyone going to survive and what is the point of the manipulation?

If you have always thought that the deck was stacked against the hapless nubile victims of countless slasher flicks, this movie confirms your suspicions. And then it takes the genre further, much further.
Right off the bat, there is the suggestion that this is not your normal slasher flick.
Two men in lab coats (Jenkins and Whitford) seem like they could be technicians at any run-of-the-mill industry.
They look like jovial geeky types but some of their dialogue does not make sense and one is intrigued as to whom or what they are working for.
The plot thickens when a betting pool is launched in the lab, though again, it is not clear exactly what people are betting on.
Meanwhile, the college students discover a basement in the cabin and eventually head there.
Writer-producer Joss Whedon and writer-director Drew Goddard have previously worked together on the fantasy adventure television Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and Angel (1999-2004) and it is clear that their partnership works.
Fans of their work will relish the snappy dialogue here as well as the appearance of Kranz, from Whedon’s short-lived sci-fi drama series Dollhouse (2009-2010), and Amy Acker, from both Dollhouse and Angel, in a supporting role.
The film is a chance for the writers’ imagination to run wild and, indeed, they do not hold back. They have fun with conventions such as the creepy guy whose words of warning are always ignored as well as ominous Latin incantations.
Word of advice: If a phrase includes the word “animus”, best not to read it aloud.
They even find a way to pay homage to horror tropes of other cultures, most memorably that of Japan’s.
There are shades of The Hunger Games (2012) here in the way that events are being rigged and controlled but the ends are even more sinister.
Crucially, after leading the audience down a certain path, Whedon and Goddard do not cheat with the ending.
The smart, knowing and thoroughly enjoyable Scream (1996) breathed new life into the moribund slasher flick.
Cabin changes the game altogether.
(ST)