Posted in: Movies | Tagged: cabin in the woods, drew goddard, film, joss whedon, Review

Cabin In The Woods Review

Abigail Raney writes for Bleeding Cool.

What I want to tell you about The Cabin in the Woods is everything – every last detail that I can remember and what I think each one means. However, that would be extremely long, testing the tolerance of all but the most devoted Goddard and Whedon fans, and also probably ruin the experience of actually seeing the film. So instead of trying to tell you what The Cabin in the Woods is, let me tell you what it's not.

It's not Buffy.

Don't despair – it isn't completely without Buffy-like charm. There are quips to spare, and more than one time where, in classic Whedonesque style, a moment of tender sweetness or thrilling heroics is undercut with something humorous or unexpected. There's a line that Fran Kranz has about Latin that I'm pretty sure was a direct wink at those of us who really do own buttons that say "I'm a slayer – Ask me how." But for all that, if you're expecting the emotional catharsis of the Whedon/Goddard collaborations running throughout Buffy's seventh season, you'll be disappointed.

But only because you'll be expecting the wrong thing. Someone like Buffy can't exist in this film, because she might save the day and get everyone out alive, and that is most definitely not the point.

It's not a spoof or a satire.

Yes, it is a self-aware comedy that uses horror tropes like Legos to build its narrative. But that's just architecture – what's going on inside is something different altogether. Goddard and Whedon aren't making fun of horror films. In fact, they're taking them very seriously. They want to know if you know what your horror films are doing. They want to find out if you realize that the cabin in the woods is a recent successor in a long line of places marked out for the sacrifice of the individual for society.

The Cabin in the Woods isn't about getting out of the cabin alive. It's about how you get to the cabin in the first place. It's about the things you choose and the things that are chosen for you, and what you might do about it if you could see all those choices clearly (if, in fact, you ever can).

It's not for the faint of heart. And when I say that, I could be referring to the requisite blood and gore, the various severed things, the appropriately gruesome instruments of pain and death (including the quite liberal use of a bear trap).

I could also be talking about the sequence which starts with the pressing of a big red button labeled – if I remember correctly – "System Purge", which releases any number of nightmares, one of which will hopefully be your nightmare, making you twist in your seat and want to cover your eyes. But there's something beyond bear traps and nightmares in this film.

According to the trailer and the tagline ("You think you know the story."), we are to expect revelation. But what we actually get is implication – our own implication in the events of the story. Whatever horrors lurk within, around, and beneath the cabin, they are nothing compared to the everyday humans pulling the strings.

The cabin in the woods is a fabrication of our own making. We make the blonde into a dumb whore, and we do it long before the drugs in her hair dye and pheromone-infused mist enter the picture, because we already believe that's the role she's meant to play. And then we send her to die, condemned for sins we've carefully engineered, and claim as reason the good of society.

If you're really paying attention, The Cabin in the Woods will repeat back to you the stories we've told ourselves for centuries, and at the end, when all the dust from the wacky, bloody hijinks has settled, it will leave you wondering if you're brave enough to look those stories in the eye and risk really understanding what they've been saying.

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