REVIEW OF THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

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About The Movie:

In a large, industrial facility, two technicians named Richard Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Steve Hadley (Bradley Whitford) are getting ready for an unknown operation.

Meanwhile, five friends; Dana (Kristen Connolly), Curt (Chris Hemsworth), Jules (Anna Hutchison), Marty (Fran Kranz), and Holden (Jesse Williams), drive out to a remote cabin in the woods for a vacation, supposedly owned by Curt's cousin. As they get to the area, they stop for gas and meet the harbinger Mordecai who owns the gas station. After giving them gas and insulting Jules, he calls the technicians to inform them about the visitors' arrival. When they get to the cabin, the technicians along with Wendy Lin (Amy Acker) and other workers get ready to initiate their operation.

After finding a strange one-way mirror, the friends begin to party by drinking, smoking and playing Truth or Dare. While playing, a cellar door opens abruptly and Dana, after being dared to explore, find mysterious artifacts. Meanwhile, the technicians begin to bet on what actions the teen's will take. Dana eventually reads a diary about a strange family and reads a spell in Latin which raises the family from the dead.

The technicians then alter the teens' behavior by administering hormones through the air ducts. Curt and Jules go outside to have sex and when they begin, then they are attacked by the zombies and Jules is decapitated. Marty begins to feel as if he were being controlled by "puppeteers" and meets the fleeing Curt outside. The friends attempt to barricade against the zombies. They are locked in their rooms and Marty is taken and presumably killed. Holden helps Dana escape by the one-way mirror and they and Curt escape the cabin to head to the vehicle.

The technicians begin to worry when a glitch causes the cave entrance to not blow up, giving the survivors a chance to escape. Sitterson is able to fix the problem, which blows up the cave cutting off the teens escape route. Curt attempts to use his motorbike to jump the gap between the exit road but is killed instantly by a force field which causes him to crash and fall.

Holden and Dana leave with the RV and attempt to find another exit with Dana now believing Marty's talk of "puppeteers". As they are driving though, a zombie is able to kill Holden and they crash into the lake while Dana escapes. The zombie approaches her and begins to attack her while the technicians drink in celebration that they have completed the "ritual". The party soon stops when a phone call from "upstairs" informs them that Marty survived and caused the glitch. Just as Dana is about to be killed, Marty rescues her by tripping the zombie and knocking it into the water.

While the others were trying to escape, Marty came across a wire box in which he is able to access an elevator. As they take it down to the center where the technicians are they pass by a number of monsters and realize that the "puppeteers" were letting them decide their fate. They are stopped by a guard but are able to knock him out and escape. SWAT teams are sent to kill them and Dana and Marty are cornered. In a last effort to escape, they release all the monsters who kill off all the SWAT teams and raid the base, killing all personnel. Sitterson stays alive and escapes by a secret trap door but is stabbed accidentally by Dana who was able to find the other entrance.

Dana and Marty find a large crypt with strange tablets and then meet the "Director" (Sigourney Weaver). She then tells them the reason for the ritual is to appease gods called "The Ancient Ones" who live beneath the facility and want the sacrifice of five young people of the genre: The Athlete, The Whore, The Scholar, The Fool and The Virgin. If the ritual is not completed, the Ancient Ones will rise and destroy the world. To complete it, Marty must first die though Dana could live.

Dana is tempted to shoot Marty, but does not in the end. The Director attacks Marty and tries to kill him while Dana is attacked by a werewolf. Marty saves her, but the Director gets the upper hand and steals the gun from him. Before she can shoot though, a zombie from the first batch kills her and Marty knocks them off the platform.

Marty sits and comforts Dana while also lighting a joint. He then remarks that this course of action might be for the best, that it might be better for someone else to get a chance at life. Morning comes and Marty and Dana hold each other as a hand from one of the Ancient Ones rises up and destroys the facility and cabin as the movie ends.

What Is Good About The Movie:

When a hottie, a virgin, an egghead, a jock, and a stoner walk into an isolated cottage for a college getaway weekend in The Cabin in the Woods, a wised-up viewer would do well to ask, What is this, a joke? But the makers of this smoothly clever, faintly self-congratulatory project, choose not to answer. Instead they offer entertainment with the impressive Rubik's Cube-y structure of something new — a contortion well represented on Cabin movie posters — and the soul of something safe and square. In these Woods, the honest terror of real horror is never a threat. Even when all hell breaks loose, that hell is cushioned by air quotes, with the audience buckled up for benign, heady fun.

What Is Bad About The Movie:

The revelation that Others are busy monitoring our cast of young people as they shriek in the dark woods — a reality hinted at even in the movie's trailer — deepens the mystery. So does the appearance of Six Feet Under's incomparable Richard Jenkins and The West Wing's snappy Bradley Whitford, whose involvement in the tale will eventually explain the movie's tagline: ''You think you know the story.'' These two experienced actors provide the film's adult-level entertainment.

What does it take these days to really, seriously horrify the target audience for The Cabin in the Woods? Where are the intrepid genre filmmakers willing to be unironic, challenging viewers comfortable with game-style plot twists and the digitized world of mash-ups and re-tweets in which the amused head is more familiar than the aroused heart? I had HIGH hopes The Cabin in the Woods, but it fell flat for me.

Overall Grade:

D