#186 -- Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Rating: 4.5 / 5
Director: Drew Goddard

Upon a first look, you'll think this is just like any other cliche horror movie. There's a group of college kids out in the woods, and they start to die. Even the kids themselves are pretty cliche. There's the whore, the jock, the smart guy, the stoner, and the sweet innocent girl that everyone roots for. Personally, I was rooting for the jock, but that's another issue entirely. But, you'll know by the trailers and various previews that it's actually quite different. Everything these people are going through is controlled by an outside force. But I don't think you could possibly realize just how different it is until you watch it.

It all started in the cellar of the cabin. There were various objects that seemed fairly normal; but they were special gadgets, and they would decide the group's fate. Whichever object they found the most interest in would release some sort of adversary. In their case, it was a family of torturous zombies. I think the family's father was abusive, and he killed the entire family; but it didn't go very much into their story, rather than reading a few pages from the daughter's diary. They looked kind of swampy, which I guess was from being in the gross lake waters for so long. They called them zombies, but they weren't the eat-people kind of zombies. They killed them with saws, bear traps, and whatever else they could get their hands on. All the while, everything was being controlled by some people in a control room. The kids could decide the outcome somewhat, but it was mostly rigged. The whole time, there were chemicals being released into the cabin. It would change the way they thought, and steer their actions toward whatever the directors wanted them to do. Of course, it didn't have much of an effect on the stoner, because his marijuana cancelled the effect of the chemicals. There was also a wall between the cabin area and the "real world," and there really was no way across it. We found this out when Mr. Jock decided to try to jump his motorcycle through it. It didn't end very well for him.


At the end there was supposed to be only one: the virgin. They said that the virgin's death was optional, and it was decided by fate, rather than the puppeteers. But that didn't go very well for them. In the end, there were two. I was actually kind of confused about that, though. The one they said was the virgin was not a virgin. Something was said at the beginning of the movie about her sleeping with one of her professors. So, my question is this: were they rooting for the wrong one? Anyways, they found their way back to the control room, and they learned the truth of what was happening to them. It was a scheme much bigger than just wanting them dead. In the building, there were cubes filled with different sorts of creatures; any of them could have been unleashed on the kids. There were zombies (real zombies), demons, killer clowns, killer unicorns, werewolves, a Pinhead-type guy, giant serpents, giant spiders, and a shit load of other things. There was even something they called a merman, but it looked nothing like any merman I've ever seen before. It was actually very interesting.

So, it started out just like any other horror movie would; but it ended up being completely different, and I really liked it. The only problem I had was the direction they took with the creatures. With all those other awesome things available, they chose the swampy zombies? I'm talking about the directors/screenwriters, not the characters. They could have chosen something much better. I personally would have liked to see the big pin-head like guy. There was some sort of puzzle ball that would have brought him to them. He had saw blades stuck in his head, he was big, and he definitely looked very dangerous. I would have liked to see what he would have done to them. Some of the things I understand would have made the movie less appealing (like the killer clown; there are so many of those), but some things would have been badass. But they did what they did, and I still really loved this movie. I'd been wanting to see it for a long, long time, and I'm so freaking glad that I finally did. So, what are my last words on this movie? Look at that picture above, the one to the left. That's Chris Hemsworth. 'Nuff said.