The Cabin in the Woods

Joss Whedon has some juice with the geek world. Being responsible for “Buffy” and “Firefly” he has a big fan base that will follow him no matter where he goes. In 2012 we get a double dose of Joss Whedon written movies. The first is a little film called “The Avengers” and the second is a little horror film he co-wrote with fellow “Buffy” and “Angel” writer Drew Goddard called “The Cabin in the Woods”.  Now the title may sound a little confusing, but the film really is about a cabin in the woods, a cabin where things are set to happen for a reason.

  It starts off like most horror films, a bunch of teenagers who want to escape to a place where they can be alone and do whatever they want . Curt (Chris Hemsworth) has just the place; it seems his cousin has just bought a cabin in some woods near a lake. With the place picked out, Curt and his girlfriend Jules invite Curt’s friend Holden (Jesse Williams) and Jules’s friend Dana (Kristen Connolly) along for the trip. Everything wouldn’t be complete if you didn’t have the stoner friend come along as well and that part is filled in nicely by Marty (Frank Kranz). Everyone climbs in the RV and heads out for a weekend of bliss, one where everyone will surely have fun. On the way to a place that no GPS can find, they come upon an old gas station, where a very unfriendly man gives them directions, but tells them that they won’t have to worry about coming back. No one listens and our group makes its way to the cabin and when almost there we see that things are not what they seem. While enjoying the night, they  come upon a basement with a wide array of treasures they all start to explore. What they don’t know is that they are about to unleash a horror upon themselves and they, by means of what they discover in the basement, are about to choose their own nightmare.

     The film starts off with a “hey look at me, I am making a cheesy horror film” vibe. It appears the writers were going for this all along, and for about half the movie it works. Then, I think, the writers started to take some turns that didn’t really need to be taken and in the end they just drive us off the cliff, but not in a good way. This film has been sitting around for a year or so and you can kind of see why.  There has been a lot of great buzz building around it but like most great buzz, it kind of lets you down. No one was expecting Whedon to reinvent the horror movie, but I believed he would make something different and fun. Well he did for about half of the film and when your film is only 105 minutes, half is not good enough.

 Brian Taylor