The Cabin In The Woods: movie review

Release date: 13 April 2012
Certificate: 15
Director: Drew Goddard
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Richard Jenkins

What's the story?
Five college teens decide to spend the night in exactly the kind of cabin in exactly the kind of woods where really bad things happen. Oops...

What did we think?
We like it. We like it a lot. Thing is, we can't tell you why without ruining it. If you've managed to avoid watching the trailer for this wickedly playful horror-comedy, co-written by cult clever-clogs Joss Whedon, consider yourself lucky. If you go down to The Cabin In The Woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. Loads of them, actually.

You think you've seen it all before: sexy bad girl (Anna Hutchison), sexy good girl (Kristen Connolly), handsome jock (pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth), nerdy black guy (Jesse Williams) and wacky stoner (Fran Kranz) arrive at a woodland cabin and do all the dumb things that teenagers in horror movies always do. Oh, a trapdoor that leads to a spooky basement! Let's read from the scary old book, then go for a night-time romp... Dead.

But right from the off, Cabin In The Woods twists your expectations until they snap off in a bloody, brilliant sacrifice to the horror gods. After opening credits that reveal hellish paintings of ancient torture, we cut confusingly to a pair of middle-aged white-collar workers (Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford) in a boring office chatting about the day's shift.

We'd love to say more. But we've said too much already. Slickly constructed by debut director Drew Goddard (writer of Cloverfield, Lost and Buffy) and his mentor Whedon (Buffy, Serenity, Avengers Assemble), this is the smartest meta-horror since Scream. So smart, in fact, it's too busy being "scary" to really be scary. Luckily, it's still easily one of the most enjoyable movies of the year: funny, gory, clever and imaginative.

Cabin, woods, blood, laughs, brains. Say no more.