Horror is a pretty overpopulated genre these days, which is kind of a double edged sword. On one hand, if you're a huge fan of the genre then there's no lack of material for you to feed your addiction with. On the other, however, it means that although there may be a lot of good horror movies, there are a lot that also suck really hard. And if you're not a die-hard horror fan such as myself, that means that it can be fairly rare that a really good horror film crosses your path. So in a genre inhabited by a huge excess of remakes, sequels, reboots, zombie movies, "found footage" films and torture porn gorefests, The Cabin in the Woods is an original movie that I found surprisingly impressive.
Spoilers ahead.
The basic premise of Cabin in the Woods is nothing too original. A group of young adults go to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of partying and relaxation. You've got all the typical horror movie character archetypes: the promiscuous party girl, her athletic jock boyfriend, the relaxed stoner, the average, nice, normal girl and the smart guy. I suppose it's missing the token black dude that gets killed off first but I'll just assume they decided to forgo that cliche to save time and create unpredictability. Anyways, these five kids head off to the jock's cousin's (allegedly, he doesn't appear in the movie at all) cabin for a few days. On the way they encounter that age old foreshadowing device of a creepy old man that plays no real role in the film other than to give the characters directions and vaguely predict their demise. Of course, they assume he's just been alone out in the middle of nowhere too long and continue to their destination. Once there, they find a few spooky things in the place but generally just chalk it up to an old house built by someone strange. Big mistake. This is where the other subplot comes into play. The kids are being watched the whole time, and their entire experience is being controlled by people underground who are drugging them and controlling them to complete a mysterious ritual. While playing truth or dare that night the cellar door suddenly bursts open. Just like the classic stupid horror movie characters they are, the victims enter. They find a strange diary and read some incantations out of it, causing zombies to rise from the ground. While the jock and his dumb blonde girlfriend are outside making love, encouraged by pheromones that the technicians controlling them released, the zombies appear and kill the blonde. This is when things start to go downhill. The zombies bust into the house, killing the stoner shortly after he finds a camera in his lamp and believes he's on a reality TV show, and the jock, the smart guy and the other girl escape in the RV they came in, only to have a tunnel collapse in front of them, detonated by the technicians trying to kill them. After this, the jock tries to jump across a nearby ravine on a dirt bike to get help, but hits an invisible wall and falls to his death. After this, smart guy and normal girl go back the way they came, only to realize that one of the zombies is in the RV. He kills smart guy, and almost gets average girl too but in a startling change of events, the stoner had previously survived and saves her. They go back to the cabin and discover an elevator under the floor. This takes them down into the secret base where all the people are that are controlling them and trying to kill them. Here they see hundreds of monsters that have been used in previous rituals, and it is revealed that the monster that each group of people get is determined by what object they select when they go into the cellar full of weird old stuff. This group got the zombies because they read the diary of the family that the zombies used to be. Once the technicians discover the kids got into their secret lair, they send troops after them. Thinking on his feet. the stoner opens the containment cells and the monsters all come out and massacre everyone. The two survivors eventually make it into a secret vault where Sigourney Weaver mysteriously appears and tells them that it was all a ritual to appease ancient gods that will destroy the world if they don't get very specific sacrifices that correspond to each victim's personality: The Whore, The Athlete, The Scholar, The Fool, and The Virgin. All of them have to die but the Virgin can survive, her life is left up to fate. So basically, Sigourney Weaver dies and the two survivors chill out smokin' a J while a giant god awakens and presumably destroys the earth because they failed to complete the ritual. (This is a very rough summary, watch the film to get the finer points.)
One of the things I liked about Cabin in the Woods the most was fairly formulaic for its genre, but it had a reason to be. It's one thing to write in characters that are stereotypical of horror films (stoner, jock, slut etc) just because that's become standard, and another thing completely to use those archetypes for a purpose that helps drive the storyline. Those students were picked and chosen to go to that cabin by the people orchestrating the ritual because they fit the descriptions of the people they needed to sacrifice to appease the ancient gods that are really insecure and require validation in the form of human sacrifice to feel good about themselves. It's sort of a horror film inside a horror film. The victims dying is freaky enough in itself, but the story takes itself to another level in the form of questions involving reality and freewill. Am I really sitting here typing this right now? or is some guy watching me waiting for me to get up and leave the room so a werewolf can jump out of the shadows and devour me? I'm pretty sure that the next generic slasher film I watch I'm going to be thinking the whole time about those technicians underground, controlling the environment and the people in it, betting on how and when they are going to die but at the same time making sure things to according to plan so their ritual goes off without a hitch and they appease the ancient gods.
Cabin in the Woods can be seen as a critique of the meta that slasher films generally tend to follow, and some would say that some of the more contrived plot points suggest that the main goal of the movie is to satirize its own genre and reveal how stupid slasher movies really are. I think it's partially that, but it's also something more. It's a new lens for people to view the horror movie genre in, giving purpose and reason to why the current formula is the way it is. It expands outside of itself to create a whole other dimension of horror, and in that aspect is succeeds. The concept of being controlled by mind altering drugs and forced into situations that all but guarantee your own demise is pretty scary in itself, not even counting the hundreds of horrific creatures that the technicians have in store for anyone who is part of the ritual. When the stoner let all the creatures out and they started killing everyone in the underground bunker, a clown came out. I'm freaked out by clowns. Just the prospect of people being able to drug me up and send a killer clown after me is pretty horrifying. There was also one scene where the kids were playing truth or dare and the Whore is dared to make out with a wolf's head that is mounted on the wall. Watching that happen, I was completely sure it was going to come to life and eat her head right there, but it didn't. Cabin in the Woods understands the value of restraint as well as excess, and how necessary it is to create tension and suspense as well as using violence and gore to scare an audience. And in that aspect as well as several others, it succeeds.
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