The Cabin in the Woods
Director: Drew Goddard
Writer: Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard
Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, Amy Acker, Tim De Zarn
[Here’s my first review.]

Plot:
While two technicians (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) prepare for a huge day at work, 5 students decide to spend a weekend in a remote cabin: Dana (Kristen Connolly), Curt (Chris Hemsworth), Jules (Anna Hutchinson), Marty (Fran Kranz) and Holden (Jesse Williams) just want to have a weekend of fun and drinks. But something more seems to be going on in the cabin in the woods.

How can I express how much I love this movie? Probably only through interpretative dance. But since this is not a vlog, you’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you: I freaking love this film.

I watched this film with two friends who hadn’t seen it before because they were too scared to watch it in the cinema. Despite my assurances that the film isn’t as bad as that and that it really is more awesome than scary. Funnily enough, I was the one who reacted to the few jumpscares most. So it goes, I guess. (The fourth person to watch it with us had seen it several times already and he seemed to sleep most of the time.)

But back to the actual topic. This movie is just brilliant. It’s amazingly funny and has some laugh out loud moments, mostly courtesy to Bradley Whitford (who is still perfect) and Fran Kranz. It’s just obviously Joss Whedon’s humor (which I love) and delivered perfectly to boot.

But apart from being an entertaining movie in its own right, it just hit me again how much of meditation on horror movies this film is. The tropes that are featured, the stereotypes, certainly. But more importantly it’s about what horror movies mean to us and how they work and what they’re for. It’s not one of the films that is about how sick horror movie fans are and how can you watch this violence, it’s disgusting and gross, so you must be disgusting and gross.

Instead it’s a smart look at (one might be even tempted to say analysis of) the stories horror movies tell us about society and what need they fulfill in society. And that is beautiful to watch unfold, especially with the gore that is thrown in.

Summarising: Anytime again.