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Friday 13 April 2012

The Cabin in the Woods

Ah, how I love a good horror. This one was enticing me for several reasons, the first being the publicity surrounding it, which described it as a "genre-bending" horror. Intriguing.


Joss Whedon, one of the producers (beloved creator of Buffy, Angel etc) describes the film as a "loving hate letter" to the horror genre, which he feels has devolved completely with the introduction of torture porn movies (Hostel, Saw etc).
Fair play Joss, I'm getting a bit sick of the old torture porn myself, having watched the first 3 Saws, the 2nd Hostel and the Collector (a film I'm still mentally scarred by a year later), I've been waiting for something a bit more clever to come along. The Cabin in the Woods is about 5 friends going to a remote cabin in the woods..and that's all I can tell you without ruining the plot. It also has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is usually a good indicator.
Below: Why must they always investigate the basement, why?!:


Whedon throws in all the usual cliches, the creepy redneck working at the broken-down gas station on the way (who is hilarious by the way), the sexually promiscuous blonde (a firm favourite to die first), the jock (also no chance of survival) and the virgin (horror film rules state the virgin always survives) but similar to "Scream", these stereotypes are taken and cleverly used to make fun of the horror movie genre, while still making the audience jump in their seats.


The special effects also have Joss Whedon written all over them, after his years of creating creepy-crawly creatures on Buffy and Angel. There's also lots of pop culture references- zombie movies, Japanese horrors like The Ring and the Grudge and classics like the Evil Dead 2 etc, also something Whedon used to use to great effect in Buffy.
While this in no way scared me, I found it highly entertaining and would recommend it as a good date night choice, assuming you enjoy seeing large quantities of blood on a date night..I do, but then I'm odd...Enjoy!

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