The Last Horror Movie

It's difficult to write meaningfully about The Cabin in the Woods, the new horror film from Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, without using all kinds of spoilers.  To say that it isn't really a horror movie as much as a postmodern commentary on the horror genre, with tones of sci-fi, comedy, religion, and even Lovecraft thrown into the mix may be giving too much away, but most of the above becomes apparent to the viewer after only a few minutes into the movie.  Some critics have noted that this is the ultimate, as in last, horror movie, and while that is certainly not true, I understand the feeling: after watching this, I wondered, where else can the genre go and still move forward?

Two things are happening here (well, three things, but I can't reveal that third thing although you will find a couple of clues in this review):  1) five college students, the usual mix from shy girl to studly guy to stoned joker, head off for a weekend at an isolated cabin in the woods; 2) two white-collar guys in what looks like a small-scale Mission Control building, are observing the five all the way, from when they leave their apartments to their arrival at the cabin and beyond.  It soon becomes apparent that the two guys (and a large team of assistants) are to some degree controlling what happens to the kids.  The tone in the office is light-hearted, with bets going on as to what the kids will do and what will happen to them.  My first thought was that the kids were unwittingly either starring in a reality TV show, or participating in a secret scientific experiment, but things soon take a dark turn when zombies appear and people start dying--or do they?

And that's about all I can say about the plot mechanics.  Not only would more detail spoil the twists, it would spoil the fun.  And despite the blood and gore, this is a fun movie, though ultimately, it really isn't.  The apocalyptic tone that takes hold near the end cancels out some of the fun.  This movie is not about the actors, though they all do OK, with Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins standouts as the two white-collar guys.  It's not even about the effects:  there aren't many effects in the first half, and the last half is filled with CGI, but I think the movie would have worked even with a lower budget.  It's about the ideas: about the horror genre, about human nature, about our mythologies.  And a little bit about what scares us in the dark.  The two best scenes in the movie: 1) early on, when the five kids go down into the cabin's dark basement and find, well, every possible spooky artifact that could ever set a horror movie's narrative in motion; 2) a scene near the end which I can't describe except to say it happens when a bunch of elevator doors all open at once--I was scared, I laughed, and I was in awe all at the same time, three feelings that this movie conjures up regularly.  It's not perfect--a more detailed backstory would have filled in some glaring plotholes--but it's damn fun, and a little scary, and kinda awesome.