Friday, April 27, 2012

Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Directed by: Drew Goddard
Starring: Fran Kranz, Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth
Trailer

I feel that it's necessary to begin my review with a few qualifiers. First of all, I am a late-comer to Joss Whedon fandom. It took insistent recommendations from close friends (i.e. peer pressure) to get me to watch my first season of Buffy. Once I did, I jumped in with both feet and never looked back. So, this review of his latest creative endeavor will naturally be colored by that slavish devotion that grips many of Whedon's fans.  Secondly, any reader of Gummi Popcorn will quickly surmise that I'm big on horror. But, I'm also very bored with it. There are times when the usual five-kids-in-a-cabin trope is just what the doctor ordered. When I'm sick at home, I eat lots of soup and watch teenagers get slashed by forest-dwelling psychos, hockey-mask-donning lunatics and ironic twists of fate. That's just the way I'm wired. However, that same formula has been used so often that it has become a joke. And now we get to how the two subjects are related.

As the trailer indicates, there's more going on here than what we as an audience might expect. Yes, there are the stereotypical victims - the blonde sexpot, the confident jock, the dowdy smart girl, the sensitive intellectual, and the pot-smoking loser - however, these are all just manipulations. There is a control room, behind the scenes, that oversees the most critical of decisions (do they stick together or split up?) while allowing enough rope for the characters to hang themselves with. And that's why Cabin in the Woods is not like any horror movie you've seen before.

What I liked about this film is that the creators know what audiences have become accustomed to and built a story behind it. They've added another layer of muscle just under the sagging skin of the horror genre. When, at the end of the film, that pallid flesh is ripped away, it is torn with reckless abandon by every manner of beasts let loose from darkened closets, illuminated legends and feverish nightmares. And yes - it's reminiscent of an episode of Buffy. And yes - it's hilarious.

Whedon has his finger firmly on the pulse of pop culture. He seems to have an innate ability to work subtle but relevant humor into even the worst situations, using a lingo that reverberates with currency. (I imagine him stalking groups of teenagers with a flip phone just to pick up their speech patterns, but I digress.) His comic timing is rarely less than perfect. The writing for Cabin in the Woods reflects that talent, in much the same way Whedon's other creations do.

That being said, I don't expect this film to explode the box office. While it doesn't blatantly cater to Whedon fans (there are no cheesy cameos from Boreanaz or Gellar), it might be a little too offbeat for mainstream audiences. After all, not everyone appreciates having the rug pulled out from underneath them.

Bechdel Test Results: Fail
Second Opinion

Hottie Rating: 4 of 5 (for wolf/girl make-out scene)
Overall Rating: 5 of 5 (this one goes on my top 5 list)