The review on a blog - The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods is a celebration and a critique on the legacy of horror in cinema. The first act of the film feels somewhat contrived but oddly not of horror. In fact Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s musings on horror’s conventions and machinations are a lot of fun, for both audiences the attractive teens are playing to.  The overseeing operation feels familiar to the concepts of Fincher’s The Game or even Verhoeven’s vision of Total Recall, albeit with a horror skin as opposed to thriller or sci-fi. It’s easy to over-analyse horror and sci-fi films and some will argue that the film is a reflection on the manipulation of industry and committee on individuals. Or maybe, it’s a confrontational look at our own voyeurism as fans of celluloid horrors. If you want to argue such points, good luck, but you’d be very wrong to. The greatest advocate of the inconsequence of such arguments is the second half of the film. It is here that the cabin really breaks out of the woods (figuratively, though, if that had been one of the mad curveballs it would have been one of the lesser surprises). Stepping back from true critical assessment for a moment and removing any lingering threat of spoilers (though the statute of limitation has somewhat passed), once the film lets rip, and it really does let rip, breaking free of anything approaching comprehension, I, Luigi Sibona, could not stop grinning. Just grinning with wondrous glee. Yes, that isn’t a conventionally adequate rounding up of a review but neither is the conclusion to The Cabin in the Woods. That doesn’t make it any less deliriously enjoyable (the film, not this review). Is it a great film? No, not really. Plot holes, flights of fancy and unremarkably grisly first-half horrors keep it from the lofty heights that its creators were so deliberately not aiming for. But is it the most wildly unpredictable fun you’ll have this year? Well… you’d certainly hope so.