Review- The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

I couldn't help myself but to compare The Cabin in the Woods to Scream. They both play off of the audience's anticipations and expectations and both walk the line perfectly between scares and humor. However, while Scream parodies the horror genre, The Cabin in the Woods does more to celebrate it. Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard love horror films enough to want to change them.

I don't want to give anything away, but let me just say that this film is very, very clever. The characters are great, the scares are great, the humor works very well with the scares, the acting is great, and the atmosphere is perfect. However, the film crams too much in at the end and rambles for an additional twenty-minutes that I don't really think it needed. These last few scenes become too epic for the film's good, and they feel out of place among the rest, which is like a really really good independent 80s slasher/zombie flick. Imagine if Friday the 13th suddenly tried to become Star Wars in its last act. I would've appreciated a much more subtle approach.

I only feel the need to criticize the last twenty because the first seventy are so great. Multiple horror-movie-references (including a fifteen-minute stretch taken right from the Evil Dead series), a smart script, and an engaging storyline all add up to one knock-out horror-comedy. One of the best I've seen so far this year.

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