Review

A group of five apparent cookie cutter college kids head out to an isolated cabin in the woods for a weekend of the usual. Before you can say, "hey haven't I seen this movie before", we learn not everything is as Boredwood plastic predictable as we thought it might be. There's manipulation going down with a fixed agenda behind it.

When you get a Stoner coming to the rescue thing and the final virgin girl who isn't actually a virgin you know you are either going to get something stunningly original, or another rehash of previous movies wrapped up in the sort of fake intelligentsia that people like Kevin Williamson display. So okay it has zombies, let's rock and roll with the latest scary movie to have Seppo teens all hot and bothered.

You can be pretty sure any movie with Joss Wheldon's name in the credits will have fanbois reaching fevered pitches of mutual masturbation, regardless of the quality of the movie or television show on offer. It's a Pavlovian dog reaction that tends to distort the true value of the outing. When I saw The Cabin in the Woods involved Wheldon I immediately had two thoughts going in, the flick was likely to be more hyped than it has any right to be, and hasn't Wheldon fallen a long way from the Buffy days, talk about living off past glories. Surprisingly my other thought was that the movie must be a remake given the name, and yes it sort of is a remake, if you want to assign that word to a kaleidoscope of scenes from other movies and a resolution that has been done to death. For all its cleverness, and it tries slightly too hard in that regard, Cabin in the Woods is just about every other horror movie you have ever seen. Unfortunately a lot of people, maybe tanked up on the Wheldon name, have been fooled into believing this to be the hottest thing since that South Park episode involving closets and Timmy Cruise.

The movie kicks off in time honoured horror lite fashion, five plastic twenty something's are going to stay in a cabin deep in the woods that doesn't appear on GPS. Naturally along the way they run into the "colourfull" backwoods petrol station owner, Mordecai, who others an ominous warning, which naturally our team of potential victims ignore. Y'all with me so far? Our five "friends" fit into the cookie cutter class of the Stud, the Slut, the Swot, the Virgin, and the Stoner. Except they don't, that's the roles they will eventually adopt as dictated by this movie and Boredwood convention. First thing to realise folks, these stereotypes are the products of a movie making system that is now trying to have its cake and eat it as well. You people created the stereotypes, so really there is no one else to blame. The first plot hole develops in the movie as we learn the cabin is owned by the cousin of one of our soon to be victims, given the underlying premise we discover that makes exactly zero sense and is indicative of a script that needed additional editing. As stated Wheldon hasn't written anything truly memorable in a while now. So anyways we have five associated friends in a cabin in the deep dark woods, everyone knows where this is going right?

The movie arrived so hyped by North American Wheldon fans that it could do nothing else put disappoint

Except it doesn't go quite as expected, and no I'm not about to apply spoilers here given the only reason to catch the movie is to see if the hype is justified, no it isn't, and to see how many references you can spot to other movies. The characters adopt their pre-ordained roles due to external interference and then proceed to deliver every cliché we have ever seen in a horror flick, including explore alone, having sex in the woods, and going down the cellar. About the only character who doesn't conform to the established patterns is the Stoner, who avoids the clichés due to the chemicals in his system, and really can people smoke that amount of pot without turning into an amoebic blob?

The real fun inherent in the movie, besides zombies, is with trying to figure out all the reference to other, and quite often, far superior horror flicks that were original. Besides the obvious slaughter house rock slasher conventions, I was picking up on Evil Dead, Hellraiser, Ring, and a number of others. Those are just some of the obvious ones, hey throw Cube into the mix, there's also a number of more subtle references that dark genre fans will pick up on. If nothing else the movie is worth dialling in for playing spot the other horror flick. In defense of Cabin in the Woods the references are intentional rather than a side product of "idea stealing".

As stated above I'm not particular seeing anything new and interesting going down here, Saturday the 14th, Repossessed et al were banging away at horror conventions well before the modern breed got started in on them, but I guess the Stoner being the voice of reason was certainly different. If you think this movie is original, then you really need to get into your local video store and watch some more horror stat!

Gorehounds won't be baying at the moon here. We get some beheadings, looking pretty fake, multiple fatalities, and the normal flesh wounds one might reasonably expect from a dark genre flick that looks pretty low of effects people, in that Boredwood tradition. Let's not get too realistic, it might frighten the pretend to be scared crowd!

T&A centres around Anna Hutchison showing off her rack, and you get the feeling that like most other things added to Cabin in the Woods it's there because the Audience expects it and not for any intrinsic worth. Jules character is meant to be the slut, so how do we show that, by her getting her top off.

I didn't at any stage fear for any of the characters, mainly because the script is so loosely written that things like character development just aren't happening. I was hoping the Stoner was going to make it to the final credits, mainly due to the stereotyping of the other characters, but other than that I had no real investment in this movie. Cabin in the Woods is made for the sort of people who thought the rather puerile Drag Me to Hell was the best horror flick of '09. You know the "wanna be scared" crowd who really don't have a feel for the subversive nature of the dark genre.

Surprisingly my local hire place had exactly one copy of Cabin in the Woods, which remained solidly booked through the previous week. When I got a chance to check it out I snapped up the movie, along with a couple of others, and settled in for what I was hoping would be a cool and origin take on our beloved genre. What I got was a movie that tried so hard to be a statement on the concepts of the genre that it failed in any way to make anything like a lasting impression. Sorry the Indies and foreign film makers don't oblige by following Boredwood conventions, ergo this movie is pretty much Babylon reflecting on itself in a particularly narcissistic fashion. I did enjoy the references to other superior movies, and was entertained in a sort of brain dead fashion. Sorry if you think this movie is intellectual then there's a seat on the big yellow bus with your name on it. Not going to give much of a recommendation, the movie is entertaining and will no doubt make various "top ten" lists till the next bandwagon flick rolls into the center of town, but if after a statement on the genre this one falls slightly flat and takes on the easy targets.

Do you need to ask, Cabin in the Woods is currently available from all the normal haunts as a hire, purchase, or however you score your cinematic pleasure. We don't support torrents options, you are a criminal if involved with that, but no doubt help yourself to needy Asian or Yank sites happily ripping people off. The one question remaining for me is, where the hell did they get all the monsters?