Throwback Thursday: The Cabin in the Woods (2012) R

 The Cabin in the Woods (2012) R

 

Five college friends go to a remote cabin in the woods for a weekend away and get more than they bargained for.

I used to be a huge fan of Joss Whedon's work, and I love Fran Kranz, so I was really surprised when I realized that I had never written a review for The Cabin in the Woods. Mild spoilers will follow.

 

 

 At first, you're going to wonder if you're somehow watching the wrong movie.  There's nothing woodsy or cabin-like in the first few minutes.  Definitely not the beginning of a typical slasher film.  Once the title card jump scare is over, it settles into the kind of thing you'd expect from a teen slasher film... the characters are defined, their basic archetype is established, and the rowdy young adults head off for their weekend away.

Interestingly, the control room scenes basically take every groan-worthy trope from slasher films and give them real world explanations.  From the Harbinger, to the handle of a knife zapping the hand of the person holding it to get it to drop it, the drugs, the explosives... they all try to make sense of past movies' failure to make realistic choices.  The only one it didn't explain is why no one in this whole movie looks for a light switch when going into a dark room.

 

 All in all, it's a fun movie with decent slasher kills if you like that sort of thing.  Four laugh out loud moments, usually at Kranz, because he is, after all, the fool and got the funniest lines.  One holy shit moment because I'd forgotten that a kill happens in a moving vehicle, and one needle drop moment just because Sigourney Weaver is so compelling to watch.  One eye roll at when Hadley (Bradley Whitford) finally gets to see his merman.

It's a decent movie to craft to, if you don't care about little details and just want noise.  But I'd give it your full attention on the first watch, the little things will surprise you. Four out of five telescoping coffee mugs.