REVIEW: The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, 2012)

The Cabin in the Woods is the best horror film so far this year.  It is also the best horror film of the year.  It is also the best horror film of next year.  I haven't loved a wide-release horror this much since The Descent made me take "spelunking" off my bucket list.  It's an enormously satisfying genre experience, continually smashing through boundaries and finding new ways to twist the underlying material.  It's about a cabin in the woods, sure, but it's also about the people watching the cabin in the woods, and why we even bother with cabins in the woods in the first place, and what might happen if teens got their shit together and just stopped going to cabins in woods.

More specifically, it's about five characters you know.  Jock, virgin, slut, hero, doofus.  They take a break from their schooling and decide to visit, you know, The Place in the Title.  Along the way, a dirty gas station owner spits tobacco out of the side of his mouth and warns them about the danger ahead.  Then he spits more tobacco.  Then he spits again.  Man's a fan of tobacco.  We don't need the man's ominous warnings, though, because the film's already explained that the kids are driving right into a scientific experiment.

This is what the commercials give away.  What the commercials don't give away is how perfectly the film strikes a balance.  Because the film, by turns, plays its premise as straight horror, jokes around with its premise, actively forces the kids into their archetypal roles, and ultimately...

But how far can I go?  So much of the pleasure of this film depends on the surprises that occur after the halfway mark, and I dread spoiling those surprises for any audience members.  Horror fans, for sure, will be dazzled by how the film approaches the genre.  The scientists, led by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins, double as "directors" of the "movie," making sure the kids behave exactly as kids of their type should when visiting a c in the w.   Meanwhile, the remaining members of the offices play like rowdy fanboys at a midnight showing of The Evil Dead, laughing and drinking and making bets while the heroes suffer.  Is what's happening exploitation?  How can they be so callous?  Is horror inherently exploitative?

I'd say no, but it's nice that they're asking.

The 2001 Canadian film Behind the Mask tackled these ideas in a similar way, mixing horror and comedy as it deconstructed slasher pictures, and Scream popularized the meta-horror trend back in 1996.  However, both films grow frustrating in retrospect.  They weren't breaking the rules so much as honoring them, and for all the talk of characters being "in the know" about the routines they were acting out, they still acted out the routines anyway.  Scream's heroes still ran upstairs instead of downstairs and Behind the Mask spent an hour tackling slasher cliches before it embraced the structure whole-heartedly as some sort of meaningful ritual (spoiler alert: it isn't).  The Cabin in the Woods is more ambitious.

That ambition of concept leads to a lot of contrivance surrounding the actual logic of the experiment.  Why would a group of people bother getting so exacting and precise when their goal is to make five young people suffer and die?  Why would the scientists bother offering so many possible ways for the five people to die?  And isn't it incredibly convenient how one of the heroes finds exactly which button to push at exactly the right time in exactly the right place?  Why does that button exist at all?  I'm willing to ignore these for the moment, since they're how we get to the film's dizzying creativity.  Is this cheating?  Am I making allowances I shouldn't because the film is otherwise so bold and unique?

Perhaps when I come down from my high, these questions will clarify.  At the least, enough people will have seen the film that I won't be ruining the fun by discussing them in greater detail.  There are many details.  For now, though, go see The Cabin in the Woods.  It's hilarious when it wants to be, frightening when it wants to be, and constantly clever.  It's got gore and gags and games and widening gyres.  The Cabin in the Woods is a genre treat and a genre takedown.  It's everything.  I'm not joking.  The Cabin in the Woods will slice that hard-boiled egg.  It'll feed your dog and wash your car and raise your kids.  It'll turn your gold into cash.  The Cabin in the Woods will increase your manhood and keep you regular.

RATING: A-