The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

* * * ½

A wonderfully weird horror which takes you down a path you were not expecting. It is not as funny as it tries to be and most of the jokes originate from the same character, which makes everyone else immediately expendable (which is silly for a horror film as you need to care somewhat about the characters to be afraid for them). For a parody it works well though, as it parodies seriously and doesn’t create a caricature.

The nice thing about this film is that is slowly reveals the truth to its audience as it does to its characters. Obviously the audience knows more than the characters do, we are watching a horror so we know that bad stuff will happen, but the intricacies are kept for us to discover with the characters. Unfortunately, as it is quite a complex concept, the truth behind ‘the cabin in the woods’ has to be, almost, narrated to the audience as it cannot be shown simply through dialogue or visuals. This then means the characters do the awkward thing of talking out loud while they are thinking.

It achieves its goals of being both a part of the horror genre and apart from it. However I watched this with no knowledge of what will happen and that made the experience of watching it fun because everything that happened was completely random and out-of-the-blue. If you went to the cinema knowing even a basic summation of the story I think that would detract from the thing that makes this film so good, spontaneity. So although it is good, it is maybe the type of film you only watch once, and love, than watch over and over again.