Favorite Horror Movies of the Last Decade: “Cabin in the Woods” (2012)

Steering clear of remakes and sequel, and while it was very tough to pick one, I chose the recent film Cabin in the Woods. While this movie received very mixed reviews among the horror society, I loved every minute of it.

Cabin in the Woods (directed by Drew Goddard, and written by Joss Whedon), tells the story of five friends: Dana “the virgin” (played by Kristen Connolly), Curt “the jock” (Chris Hemsworth), Jules “the dumb blonde/slut” (Anna Hutchison), Marty “the stoner” (Fran Kranz), and Holden “the scholar” (Jesse Williams). When Curt reveals he has a cousin that is letting him use his cabin in the woods, the friends gear up and hit the road expecting a fun-filled time. However, when they get there, things go horribly wrong when they realize they are not alone.

Sounds like a typical cheesy horror movie right? That’s definitely what it was marketed as. But in reality it is so much more than that. Out of my friends that have seen this, a lot of them hated it because it was marketed as a full-blown horror movie rather than as a film that is poking fun at horror films and its viewers. I went into Cabin in the Woods fully knowing this, and when the movie was over, I was extremely satisfied. Not since Scream 4 had I had such a great time watching a horror film. I won’t give away too much on the off chance that there is a reader who has yet to see the movie.

To me, and although many may disagree, I think of Cabin in the Woods as “Scream of the 2000’s”. Scream poked fun at slashers, while Cabin pokes fun at horror movies as a whole. One of the things that’s really rare about Cabin that I found was that the characters were actually likeable and I found myself rooting for them the whole time, especially Curt, when a lot of the time I hate the jock character. Quite possibly the best scene of the whole movie is near the end when “all hell breaks loose”. It is a huge blood bath when all of these horror movie monsters, killers, etc. are released and kill everything in their paths. A huge horror fan will watch this scene and so many horror films will come to mind, even during the whole movie, a horror fan will think of another horror film. This movie basically tries to “explain” why characters do what they do in horror movies, and how the choices they make eventually choose their fate in the long run. It also goes as far as to having symbolism regarding feeding “the Gods” aka us horror fans.

I honestly can’t wait to go back and watch this movie on DVD and catch any references I may have missed or over-looked, and to just re-live the fun all over again. Catching the horror references was one of the funnest things about it. I can understand why some horror fan were disappointed, but I had a blast with it.

–Cody Landman