The Cabin in the Woods – Film Review

When five college friends (Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams) arrive at a remote forest cabin for a little vacation, little do they expect the horrors that await them. One by one, the youths fall victim to backwoods zombies, but there is another factor at play.

The fact that Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard wrote the script for The Cabin in the Woods in just three days is absolutely astonishing. Usually when a script is written that fast, it means that the film was rushed into production and therefore, the final product isn’t going to be that good, but the same cannot be said in the case of this movie.

The first time I ever watched The Cabin in the Woods, I thought the twist in the third act was a lot of fun but I didn’t fully appreciate, mainly because, at such a young age, I hadn’t been exposed to the trope-filled horror films of decades past. Now, however, watching this film is a whole different experience for me – and a significantly better one too.

It’s easy to watch the first thirty minutes of this film and hate it because, by all accounts, it seems like it’s going to be a god awful, cliché-filled horror flick with no surprises up its sleeve. But as soon as the twist reveals itself, it becomes an absolute behemoth of a film.

This is why I think a repeat viewing of The Cabin in the Woods is absolutely necessary, because of how disappointing the first act is the first time around. It just doesn’t seem smart. But on viewing number two (and any other subsequent viewings), you can appreciate it a whole lot more.

In case any of you haven’t seen the film yet, I won’t get into what the twist is, but it’s definitely one of the most clever and unexpected twists I’ve seen in the past ten years – maybe more. It’s the kind of twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan wish he had thought of it sooner. It carries beautifully into the third act, which is genuinely one of the most chaotic third act I have ever seen.

All of the performances are stellar as well, namely Kristen Connolly and Chris Hemsworth. Everybody plays the typical young adult jock character in the beginning but they make their characters their own by the time the film comes to a close. The film also has a surprisingly eerie tone, blending feelings of uncomfortableness and comedy almost too well.

The Cabin in the Woods truly is a film that needs to be seen to be believed. Its twist is genius, boasts strong performances, and serves as an extremely important landmark for modern horror films.