CreepTastic Review: The Cabin In The Woods

The Cabin In The Woods was released in 2012 though it was shot in 2009. Its delay meant that Chris Hemsworth's first film released was The Avengers as Thor instead of his role here. If you haven't seen the film I'd encourage you to watch it before looking at this review. In it, we see homages to many films like The Evil Dead and others, and it's meta feel actually works

First let me shout out Dead Meat's Review of the film. It's great, witty and has a lot of  behind the scenes facts about the movie if you're into that. I don't know James (the host) outside of watching his videos, but if you really enjoy this blogpost, check out his review. 

Onward, we've got a cabin to get to! Also SPOILERS!

Our cast of characters are

Eric from Billy Madison he's Hadley in this film 


Mr Fisher from Six Feet Under is Sitterson



Thor plays Curt, a sociology major 

Jessie Williams plays Holden, another jock like character, good guy. His name 

also reminds me of actor William Holden 

Fran Kranz plays Marty, the stoner. Fun Fact, he was more ripped (physique wise) than Thor in this film 

Kristen Connolly plays Dana, the virgin, the good girl  

Anna Hutchinson plays newly blond Jules

Now that we've got our cast, the title sequence introducing the movie is pretty cool and ends at COFFEE! Hadley, is complaining about his wife childproofing the house before they know if the bun is in the oven. As they continue their conversation they're interrupted by Lin played by Amy Acker saying Stockholm went South and they can't know why yet without looking at the footage. IT's down to then, The good ole USA and Japan 

While Japan has a perfect record, they're confident the US will do better this time and hasn't had a glitch since '98--it was Chem Department's fault...were you around for that Lin?

Hadley makes plans to liberate his cabinets from his babyproofing crazy wife and...

Ooh,it came out of nowhere! TITLE CARD! 

NOW, we move to Dana who's packing for the trip and admiring a drawn photo of an ex who was her Professor (and married) , newly blond Jules wants her to burn the picture when Curt introduces himself and he and Jules  spoof that drug commercial "I learned it from watching you"

Curt  notices a book Dana is reading but will be covered extensively in class, so he suggests another one giving her some pearls of wisdom "He doesn't know this author, so if you use it in class, he'll think you're profound...and you have no pants" 

Holden gets introduced in an interesting way after Curt throws a ball out the window and he catches it damn near getting hit by a car in the process

As they take the last of their bags to the RV, Marty joins us and bong, what bong? It's a simple coffee cup! What are you stoned? 

On the way there, Marty espouses gratitude that they'll be off the grid for a while, it's about damn time...but we know WHY these films like our characters off the grid don't we? 

They stop at a seemingly abandoned gas station with a harbinger character warning of impending doom. After surprising our heroes a man named Mordecai insults Jules. Marty sticks up for her by calling him a Civil War veteran and a fucker, with a great historical burn in between 

Situating themselves at the cabin with Holden and Dana in  adjoining rooms, Holden removes a disturbing painting from the wall and receives an eyeful of Dana through a one way mirror. After alerting Dana that he can see her, they switch rooms and it's an eyeful of Holden we see before she covers up the mirror...(😒) guess there's always the Internet 

😍😍😍😍😍

As Dana covers up the disturbing picture we get another dose of something being off as we see a row of monitors with our heroes on it.

                                          The Operators are going over some last minute touches

When the Harbinger calls....

The night continues on, and Lin reveals they've been dumbing down Jules through her hair dye. Mordecai calls Hadley and gives an epically funny Harbinger pronouncement of judgment on our heroes while realizing he's on speakerphone. When he thinks he's off speakerphone but people are laughing at him, he complains and Hadley asks "What's next?" You have to watch this scene, it  was one of my favorites 

Truman, a guard played by Brian White questions the ethics of the game and the Control Room pair chalk it up to leading rats through a maze, if they don't open it they can't transgress...yeah that's exactly what he says.

                                      

While playing Truth or Dare, Jules makes out with a mounted wolf head. When the cellar door pops open, they all do gown and pick up different items. Dana picks up a journal from Patience Buckner and reads it aloud. If you've seen any horror films, you know that nothing good comes from reading Latin in an old diary. Marty warns against reading it and is the only one that  hears a whisper "Read it"

 

After she reads the Latin, the camera takes us to something...someONE coming out of the ground and it's Zombie redneck torture family, not to be confused with Zombies...maybe next time she could split her bet. After the Buckners awaken Hadley is disappointed that he didn't get to see the Merman. He REALLY wants to see a Merman wreak some havoc

      The Conch that summons the Merman

      Hadley (R) "He had the conch shell in his hand"

Later on, Marty wonders why Jules and Curt are acting like horror movie stereotypes. Marty confronts Dana that something weird if going on. Jules is not that slutty girl archetype and Curt was never the dumb jock type, he's a Sociology major. Holden is now sporting glasses and attempting to translate the Latin in the diary she spoke previously--that would've been better to do BEFORE she read it, don't you think? 

As Curt and Jules are out in the woods, the Control Room releases pheromones so they'll get it on. Of course, the slasher is always waiting for some nookie to strike and strike they do, Jules gets held and after a terrifying spectacle is the recipient of a decapitation. Curt gets away 

Back at the control room, Hadley releases a lever that fills a stone tablet with blood 

Marty hears a voice telling him to go for a walk. He resists but complies after a little while. Once outside, he notices that there are no starts in the sky. Curt bumps into Marty telling him to run, then clotheslines Patience and shuts the door before another Buckner can come in. Matthew appears at the door and Curt and Holden barricade it. Now safely in side Curt tells them all to stay together but relents on it after a puff of stupid gas makes him reconsider

The control room locks  Marty, Dana and Holden in their rooms. Marty gets attacked by Judah Buckner after discovering some video equipment confirming his puppet master theory. He gets lead offscreen. Dana and Holden make it to the basement when Bear Trap  attacks Holden. Dana stabs him with a crowbar then knifes him a few times before she gets zapped and drops the knife (the trope about never keeping the weapon) 

Curt shows up on the other side of the basement and the remaining three get into the RV. "Where's Marty?" "Marty's gone" They seem home free until the Control Room realizes they forgot to blow the tunnel. Sitterson races to demolition and succeeds in blowing the tunnel to force our heroes right back to where they came. 

Curt then decides to jump the chasm on his dirt bike and come back with guns police and make those zombies pay for Jules. As he jumps the chasm to a beautiful crescendo  

He crashes into a force field and falls to his death, and that blood tablet makes another appearance 

With nowhere to run to, Dana realizes that Marty was right about puppeteers while Holden tries to keep it together and find a way out. Hope is not in abundance as one of the Buckners stowed away on the RV and stabbed Holden through the neck, plunging them into the water 

The Control Room celebrates, all except for Hadley, he thinks it would've been cooler with a Merman. After seeing Dana the lone survivor facing Bear Trap, they fill the room celebrating the success they've had and drink to unwind. The red phone rings, the room goes quiet as Hadley answers the phone 

On the screen the Control Room sees that Marty is still alive and saves Dana from the last curtain call. After making their way back to the cabin, Marty reveals an elevator in the grave the Buckners came from, oh and don't mind that hand I had to dismember Judah with a trowel...I'm sure Marty found an efficient and creative way to do that. 

                         

As they descend they find an assortment of monsters, including some that look familiar from the trinkets they were playing with in the basement 

After finding out which cube both our heroes are in, Control Room sends down a guard to retrieve Dana and kill Marty. When the guard is distracted by Judah Buckner's dismembered hand they both get out of there and into a booth. A woman's cool, detached voice says "Let us do what we need to do" but Marty and Dana ain't hearing none of it and lets the system purge 

The button Dana pushes allows monsters of all types to kill all the guards and blood spatter to obstruct our view of the killin. When more guards try to come along, we hear that familiar elevator DING! 

 

Before long, there are killer clowns, Unicorns (bummer) and a bat creature crashes into the booth forcing our heroes out into the open

                 

After going through a hole in the wall, there's chaos on every screen, Truman blows himself up rather than be Zombie chow and Hadley finally gets his Merman...not the way he wants it

After Sitterson climbs down an exit, Marty and Dana come upon Sitterson and show him some love with a knife to the stomach "Kill him" are his last words...faithful employee to the end 

Next our duo come upon a room in which a disembodied voice answers a question and comes into frame as Sigourney Weaver, the Director. She explains that there is a ritual of stereotypes, the whore has to die first, the athlete, the scholar and the fool, the virgin...well, Dana’s not a virgin but they work with what they have. The virgin can live or die but if you don't kill Marty, the beings will rise and oh, just wipe out everyone on Earth. 

The Whore - Jules

The Fool - Marty

The Athlete - Curt

The Scholar - Holden

The Virgin - Dana

The Director encourages Dana to kill Marty and fulfill the ritual, when a werewolf comes up and noms on her. Dana drops the gun, giving Marty time to shoot the werewolf. The Director makes her move and fights with Marty until she takes an axe to the back of her head by Patience Buckner and kicked over into whatever it is down there along with Patience

With Marty still alive and Japan and all other countries failing the ritual they smoke a dooby while a giant hand comes up out of the Earth and signals the end for mankind 

                  

LIKES 

I like how it could be used to tie together any horror movies out there and does it so easily. It doesn’t talk down to us either, it appreciates its audience. I love the control room and how cold and detached they seem to be solely because it’s their job. In the beginning you don’t know what their job is or what it entails but when you find out more about them, they are just regular human beings with a quite unsavory job

The security guard played by Brian White calling into question the morality of what they're doing is an interesting way to have a dialogue around it

The Practical effects won me over, and I enjoyed how they were really there to react to. The Director demanded practical effects if it can be done that way, and I applaud it. It makes it feel real. They are actually reacting to something physical, which lends to me an air of credibility you may not get with CGI 

DISLIKES 
I don’t have any dislikes

EPILOGUE

If you want a horror film that is suspenseful and smart, this is something you might like. While there is gore, it’s not excessive or over the top. It’s really watchable, I love the characters and the stakes are the highest that you can get.

All in all I would give Cabin in the Woods 5 Evil Devil Hands out of 5