Cabin in the Woods

Today's feature is Cabin in the Woods, which, despite the fact that I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan (even Dollhouse, which even many Whedon fans didn't care for, although admittedly it's not my favorite of his work) and the movie came out in 2011, I only just watched last night. The movie has basically been billed as horror, and while I can enjoy films in that genre, I'm not really a huge fan of it. Basically, I'll enjoy horror movies if there's something more to it than being horror that draws me in.

That said, I actually feel like it's pretty disingenuous to call this movie a horror flick. Honestly, it's about as much of a horror film as Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a horror TV series---which is to say that it's basically not one at all. It's very aware of horror and its various tropes, but the goal of the movie isn't really the same as those in a horror movie. Much like Buffy, it's more of a fantasy setting where really scary creatures exist than a horror movie.

So, basically what I'm saying is that I really liked it.

Fair warning, major spoilers ahead; this is a movie where it would be pretty hard for me to actually talk about how I enjoyed it without revealing substantial portions of the plot. If you want to avoid spoilers (which I never do---I'm one of those people), watch the movie then come back and read this. It's a movie that's definitely worth watching. Seriously. Go watch it. Now. I'll wait.

Done that? Good. Let's begin.

Cabin in the Woods, as those of you who've watched it well know (hint, hint to anyone who's gotten this far but hasn't seen it), is a movie that takes a traditional horror setup, five college kids who fit horror movie stereotypes (the virgin, the jock, the whore, the stoner, etc), and then both explains the setup and turns it on its ear at the same time. Turns out, these kids aren't the only ones being subjected to this kind of scenario, it's happening to other young people all over the world and it's being done to appease the Old Ones and keep them sleeping for another year so they don't wipe out the entire earth. The secret organization using both science and mysticism to try and organize the proper ritual to appease the Old Ones is thus set up as being oddly heroic even as they sit around being complete fucks to these kids (I mean, honestly, they're taking bets on what horrific creature the kids will unleash to kill them off). The two main faces of the organization sit there perving on one of the couples out at the cabin. They're not particularly great people. Even so, however, as I began to figure out what it was they seemed to be doing, I started rooting for them. Yeah, they were kind of sick, but they were what was standing between humanity and Cthulhu---I mean the Old Ones. They may not have been traditional heroes or even super great people, but it is sort of hard to argue against preventing the destruction of the world.

At the same time as this somewhat distasteful organization is being placed into an oddly heroic position, we're also getting to know the kids, whom you don't exactly want to see die. None of them are particularly dislikable and they even show some delightful moments of genre savvyness before the organization manipulating them uses their wacky science to shut it down. The movie nicely sets up a situation where you want to see the kids survive, see them win, but become more and more aware that there is something bigger at stake here than just them---that the organization needs them to die to avert a catastrophe. It's a nice conflict.

That said, I would say the weak point of the film is the kids themselves. The only one that I really actually liked was the one played by Fran Kranz, the stoner whose weed makes him immune to the chemicals the organization is trying to pump into him and therefore the most delightfully genre savvy of the bunch. While I normally find such characters annoying, he was really engaging even in the beginning of the movie when he was simply being incredibly stoned. The rest of them, though? I could really take them or leave them. They were kind of just (very) vaguely sympathetic lambs to the slaughter.

The other weak part was the part where the last two remaining kids make their way into the organization's headquarters and unleashed all of the monster that didn't get to try and slaughter them on the people who were trying ritually sacrifice them. On the one hand, it was pretty awesome and it had some really great moments (including a unicorn goring a man with its horn, which was a personal favorite), but overall it went on too long and I got bored with it. I think cutting down the slaughter would have been a good move.

Overall, though, weaknesses aside, I did really like this movie even though I was very worried that I wouldn't. It was a fun little romp and it had a premise I'd never really seen before---one which still nicely fit within the horror genre given its strong callback to Lovecraft. Honestly, watching the movie, once I was pretty sure I knew this was about preventing the rise of an eldritch horror, felt very much like playing a game of Arkham Horror or Elder Sign. It was very cool and I didn't really want to see the world destroyed by something horrible and squamous (even though it was), but at the same time I was enjoying myself instead of being scared or having my mind be overly twisted. Those emotions were for my character, or, in this case, the characters in the movie. Great movie. Not the best thing with Joss Whedon's name attached to it in existence, but it was solid and enjoyable and I'll certainly watch it again.