Ready for their closeups, from left to right: Curt (Chris Hemsworth), Holden (Jesse Williams), Jules (Anna Hutchison), Marty (Fran Kranz) and Dana (Kristen Connolly) in The Cabin in the Woods. (Photo by Diyah Pera)Producer Joss Whedon has made a fascinating meta-horror movie in The Cabin in the Woods. But I can’t exactly tell you why. Trailers for the film suggest another formula horror picture, with hints at something else. The powers that be prevent the critic from revealing what that something else is. The Cabin in the Woods is intelligent, funny and very, very bloody. It’s conceit is not particularly original, but it does a better job of tackling certain cultural themes suggested by a certain multiplex blockbuster.
Five coeds embark to the titular, archetypal cabin, and their demographic is the familiar youth ensemble found in slasher movies and The Real World. Curt (Chris Hemsworth) is the jock, whose cousin bought the surely doomed woodland retreat. Dana (Kristin Connolly) is approximately the virgin who just got out of a bad relationship with a professor and is about to get set up with Holden (Jesse Travelling Pants 2 Williams) the scholar. The team is rounded out by blonde of ill repute Jules (Anna Hutchison) and Marty (Fran Kranz), a stoner whose affected old-man voice marks him as the Shaggy in this Scooby-Doo tale of frights and appearances that may be deceiving.
The kids meet a crazed gas-station attendant on the way, and of course you’ve seen his type before. In fact nothing I’ve described distinguishes The Cabin in the Woods from dozens of other horror movies. But things are not what they seem, and the trailer leaves an intriguing hint: as the coed-packed Winnebago winds through the mountain road, a hawk flies above them and crashes into some kind of electronic grid. What is going on here?
Dana (Kristen Connolly) and Holden (Jesse Williams). (Photo by Diyah Pera)Can’t tell you. To the filmmakers’ credit, their conceit isn’t treated as a “gotcha!” moment, but is introduced in the movie’s early scenes. It changes the way you look at the formulaic set-up, but at the same time doesn’t make you feel superior to the genre. And it doesn’t make it less scary. Still, the film is being marketed as a straight horror picture. It is, and it isn’t. Whedon and his team, including Cloverfield writer Drew Gordon, playfully subvert the genre, but they still supply plenty of what horror movie audiences want. Fans of Grand Guignol will not leave disappointed.
Something as simple as the standard arrival at the cabin scene demonstrates that this is a horror movie about horror movies, and, like a recent art-house success that hides surprising details about itself, is really about culture and the creative process. Upon arriving at the cabin, Holden removes a painting of a violent hunting scene to uncover a two-way mirror to Dana’s room. The frame-hiding-a-frame is a concise metaphor for what The Cabin in the Woods is about.
When’s the last time you saw a teen exploitation movie that trafficked in notions of free will and choice? That was a dystopian satire? (Oh, yeah, that. Well this is smarter, if a little smug about it). That questions the roles of today’s youth in a changing society? I can’t tell you what character actor Richard Jenkins is doing here, other than an excellent job, but all the actors involved play their roles just as required, and if Whedon and writer/director Drew Gordon want the kids to subvert the usual roles, it’s entirely within their power to do so.
The Cabin in the Woods
Directed by Drew Goddard
Written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard
Starring Kristin Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams, Fran Kranz, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford
Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, language, drug use and some sexuality.
Opens today at the multiplexes.
