Review: 'The Cabin in the Woods' turns horror on its head

Film: The Cabin in the Woods
Director: Drew Goddard
Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams
Rating:***

Just why do kids in horror movies act the way they do? Sure, their (mostly) limited, sex-starved minds are soaked with intoxication but is it mere stupidity that contributes to them making the numerous ill-considered decisions that lead to their sticky ends? What if there were forces more insidious at work, predetermining their fates and impinging their freewill?

Oh yes, and could there also be a deeper reason why each and every slaughterhouse-bound lamb inevitably falls into some category or the other that is representative of a horror stock character?

Not to give too much away, when the studious Dana (Connolly) heads to the titular house with muscle-bound jock (though clearly he didn’t start out that way) Curt (Hemsworth), things don’t turn out so well for their friends, blonde bimbo Jules (Hutchison) and the equally studious Holden (Williams) and Marty (Kranz), a stoner whose out-there views are dismissed. And as kids destined to be reduced to ribbons, the actors do their best portraying an existentialist crisis.

While the kids resurrect a ravenous family of masochistic redneck zombies, it appears that their exploits are being monitored, and their actions influenced by a sealed of group of technicians who revel in their miseries, even placing bets on which monster would emerge to do them in.

The Cabin in the Woods goes beyond the whole dumb-teens-cruising-for-a-bruising in the midst of god knows where and exposes the chinks in the armour of the tired horror genre. And perhaps, when one watches the bloody, uncompromising end, one realises why the formulae and unuttered tenets of horror filmmaking have remained untempered with for so long.

Right from the harbinger — the ominous figure who spells out the doom that awaits the young ‘uns — to the optional survival of the good girl, the film is the result of a dissection of everything that make horror movies work — including the audience’s expectant bloodlust — to courageously flip everything over.

The film also slyly utilised a greater, more tangible terror than what conventional horror films with all their trademarks and trappings can ever offer — a look into the hopeless indifference and/or sadism of the viewer to the plight of the sufferer as reflected in the behaviour of the lab-coat wearing onlookers.

For horror movie aficionados who find the movie too cerebral, they can take delight in the underlying humour in Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon’s snappy dialogue. Also, for the fans, are numerous shout outs to the infamous ‘video nasties’ of yesteryear like The Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hellraiser. Weird tale fans, also take note of HP Lovecraft.

Horror, like the starving monstrosities it shoves in the imaginations of millions of impressionable kids, is seldom revitalised by fresh blood. The Cabin in the Woods, as an exploration of the phenomenon, is funny and scary for all the wrong (read unconventional) reasons, but it sure is interesting.