Cabin in the Woods
(2012) – Post-Avengers, I’ve been
on a quest to find out more about this man called Joss Whedon, and so far I
haven’t been disappointed; Firefly is
as clever as its devotees declaim, though Alien Resurrection left something to be desired.
Cabin in the Woods, though,
counts among the former; screenwriter Whedon brings his tongue-in-cheek
self-awareness to bear on this horror/sci-fi satire, which trots out that
oldest and ignoblest of horror tropes – a mixed bag of coeds in the titular
cabin – and does something delightfully original with it. It’s Evil Dead by way of Shaun of the Dead. Without spoiling too much, the film quickly
reveals that the five college students are being watched by cameras wired to a
control booth, where two blue collar technicians (Richard Jenkins and Bradley
Whitford) are manipulating the supernatural goings-on in the woods. I’ll stop there, because Whedon and director/cowriter
Drew Goddard are up to something quite smart here, original without disobeying
the classic rules of the horror game.
Much of the fun of the movie comes from trying to understand the
relationship between the cabin and the technicians, and the payoff is well
worth the cognitive exertion. Avengers fans will likely revel in the
presence of Chris Hemsworth in the cabin, his football jock a far cry from his
regal turn as the Asgardian lead in Thor;
the rest of the cast of coeds, though, is mostly negligible. The real entertainment value – Jenkins aside,
though he’s sharp as always – comes from the script, which wears its affection
for the genre on its bloodied zombie sleeve.That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
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